Conflicts
by Naja Melanoleuca
Summary: Chase and Foreman get into a quarrel and Wilson sticks his nose in the middle. See how the king of conflicts and the prince of passive aggression hash out their problems.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Howdy, I thought I would take a break from my LOTRs stuff to work on this. I like Chase and gave him this back story because I'm a South African born doctor who moved to Australia and eventually ended up in the USA for work. Some of what is here are quotes from episodes but some is purely fictional. After the second season most of this will probably become AU but, oh well. Also I'm not an MD, but a DVM so if I messed up any of the human medical stuff, many apologies.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these people nor would I really want to. They seem like a lot of trouble and doctors always have such huge egos. :)

**Conflict**

Wilson watched from the side lobby as Foreman ripped Chase a new one in front of half of the hospital. The larger man's insults were clear and hurtful. The patient had suffered anaphylaxis and nearly died. Chase had managed to bring them back but only barely. Brain damage was a definite possibility. Later Wilson would look at the chart and see that Foreman had never mentioned the allergy in the history. But for now it was more interesting to watch the two argue.

Or more to the point, watch Foreman yell and Chase seethe. Just once, Wilson wished Chase would stand up for himself. But he guessed it was too much to hope that the prince of passive aggression would actually willingly confront anyone unless he was totally backed into a corner. Oh the Aussie would occasionally snipe or snark at someone but the minute anyone got in his face and challenged him, he tucked his tail between his legs and rolled over. Maybe some of it was an age thing, or a personality thing, but mostly Wilson just figured that Chase really hated conflicts. He didn't try to smooth them over like Cameron did, instead he ran. He would just avoid the problem by sticking his head in the sand until it went away. Not a very emotionally healthy or well adjusted way to deal with life, but then again emotionally healthy and well adjusted were not phrases he usually associated with the Department of Diagnostics.

Foreman ended the rant with a shout of, "you better start sucking House's dick if you intend to keep your job after this screw up, junior."

Chase stiffened and Wilson hoped but in the end Chase only said, rather coldly, "are we done, I need to check on the patient?" Then he stiffly walked back through the glass doors to the ICU.

House wasn't in today so Wilson guessed that Foreman would go find Cameron to complain to. He had a few minutes so he turned and headed towards Cuddy's office and her files.

Foreman was just cleaning up his files, when Wilson arrived in the conference room. He was hoping to have an early night so he could get some sleep. The patient was stable so let Chase stay here all night monitoring them. Foreman was still prickly about the run in with his fellow duckling earlier. Had it been anyone but Chase who had made the mistake he wouldn't have reacted so strongly but something about Chase rubbed him the wrong way. Maybe it was the laisse faire attitude towards everything or maybe it was the way House had forgiven him for going to Volger but never let Foreman forget all of his screw ups. Or maybe it was just a black man's knee jerk reaction to a rich white man, even if that rich white man wasn't the faintest bit racist. In the end it didn't matter, he just didn't like Chase and didn't respect him and couldn't wait to tell House about this most recent screw up so hopefully he could be rid of the Aussie golden boy.

Just as he was shrugging his coat on, Wilson walked in with two thick files. "Dr. Foreman, a moment of your time, please."

Foreman couldn't very well say no to Wilson. One, he was House's best and only friend, and two he was just too damn nice to ever say no to. "What can I do for you?"

"I have two files I want you to look over quickly, and then tell me what you think." Wilson handed him the files and then left. "I'll be back in an hour or so with sandwiches."

Foreman sighed and sat down to look over the records. To his surprise the first one had his name squarely printed on the front. It was his personnel file. He opened it warily and paged through it. His CV was on top, along with a few notes from his interviews. His test scores and other assorted bits of information including the psychologist's notes from his one session with her. He greedily read what she had to say. Then frowned. He was not "egostitical and stubborn" unless he had to be. And he certainly didn't feel like the world owed him something, other than respect for what he had achieved. After all he had graduated with a 4.0 and had the most prestigious residency and specialty training. Hmrph!

Nothing much in the file was news to him, other than House's notes that he was smart and that House secretly liked him. He tried to squelch the warm fuzzily feeling that started to blossom when he read that. He most certainly did NOT care what House thought of him. He then slid the other file over and it was for a doctor named Robert S. Pronásledovat. He turned to the back page with all the background information on it. "Date of Birth: September 12, 1978. Place of Birth: St. Augustus Hospital Melbourne, VIC. Mother: Abagaile van der Noet Pronásledovat. Mother's place of birth: Pretoria, South Africa. Father: Dr. Rowanjec Pronásledovat. Father's place of birth: Usti nad Labem, Czechoslovakia. Full name: Robert Saint Benedict Pronásledovat."

Foreman looked up confused. He didn't know any other Australian doctors around the place except for Chase. He quickly flipped through the pages of work visa and other assorted government documents till he found the staff photo. Sure enough a grainy digital picture of Chase looked back at him. Foreman leaned back and sighed. Why did Wilson want him to read Chase's personnel file? Surely Chase wouldn't want him looking at it. The youngest duckling was notoriously tight lipped about anything and everything involving his life out side of the hospital. Foreman thought some more. Maybe Wilson was trying to get rid of Chase too and was giving him ammunition to help.

He thought about what he had seen so far. So Chase was actually as young as he looked. If he was born in 1978 that would make him 26. Damn, that was young! Foreman didn't even graduate from med school until he was 26. Then there was the name. He quickly scanned the visa papers and noticed that all the official documents had the name Pronásledovat on it rather than Chase. Weird. Also, it was strange that neither of his parents were from Australia. Foreman read on.

Next was the CV. "University of New South Wales, Medical Faculty, September 1995- June 2001. Graduated Suma Cum Laude. 4.0 average." The GPA was written in several different ways but Foreman clearly recognized the 4.0. He ground his teeth in frustration and read on.

"Residency: Sydney General. 2001-2002. Residency: Red Cross Hospital Sudan 2002-2003. Specialty in Medicine: University of Sydney Hospital Critical Care Unit. 2003-2004." Foreman realized that after that he would have accepted the fellowship with House. He flipped further back to the notes of other people he had worked with. His letters of recommendation were just as glowing as Foreman's and the notes of his superiors were all exemplary. One even wrote, "Dr. Chase has a good head on his shoulders and a natural ability to see a problem from all angles and react accordingly. If being a good doctor is hereditary, than Dr. Chase Jr. definitely got the gene." This was signed by Dr. Takashi Matusumono, who would have been the chief resident at Sydney General.

"Dr. Chase doesn't mind getting down and dirty and cares more about the patients than his own pride or safety, which is a plus around here. He knows how to keep a level head during stressful times and never puts his own needs above others just because he is a 'Western trained Doctor.' The only real complaint I have about him is that I can't convince him to stay on with the Red Cross." This report was signed by a Dr. Frederique Van Reibeek dated from his time in Africa.

There were many similar ones; all lauding his cool head and laid back attitude like it was a good thing. The only complaints other than wanting him to stay, all involved him being too stand offish personally. Foreman could well understand that frustration. Getting a personal answer out of Chase was like pulling teeth. He still remembered that Chase wouldn't even answer whether he believed in god or not. It drove Foreman about crazy. Cameron had, of course, tried to smooth things over by pointing out that maybe it was cultural. He didn't know, it just seemed rude to him the way Chase answered personal questions by completely ignoring them or giving some weird non sequitur response.

Then there were House's notes about Chase. Now Chase and Cameron were both convinced that she was House's favourite duckling, but Foreman was strongly convinced that Chase was. His theory was based on several facts. First, House tended to meddle the most in Chase's life and give him the hardest time about his personal life. In short, treating him the most like Wilson. Second, with the exception of two random dates with Cameron, Chase was the only one he ever saw with House outside of work. More than once he had spied Chase having lunch or dinner with Wilson and House. Finally, House had forgiven Chase for turning on him. In fact, House hadn't really seemed mad about it at all. No, Chase was clearly House's surrogate son or lover. Foreman just wasn't sure which one.

House's notes were typically scathing like he expected and many of them centered around Chase's looks or his accent. What on earth that had to do with Chase's ability to be a good doctor, Foreman had no idea, but then again it was House. Then there were notes about his skills. Again his laid back approach to things was painted as good. This Foreman could not understand. How had Chase ever accomplished anything if he never exerted any effort on things? Golden boy probably had them handed to him on a silver platter by Daddy that was how. Both he and Cameron enjoyed their rivalry with one and other but Chase wouldn't even participate. Not that Chase was a team player by any stretch of the imagination but he just seemed to prefer to be off in his own little world of dim lights, beeping machines, and rhythmic ventilators in the ICU.

That was another thing Foreman couldn't understand about his colleague. Foreman, like most doctors, didn't like the emergency room or the ICU. They were strange foreign places where things happened too fast. The ER was always too bright and too loud while the ICU was always too dim and too quiet. Neither seemed to bother Chase, but he was clearly more at home in the dark cave that was ICU.

The notes continued to sing his praises from being creative to being almost insensate when dealing with House himself. Foreman had obviously noticed that House bothered Chase the least out of all of them. He had personally seen House do at least 30 things to Chase that would have driven him to punch the older man. For example, House took Chase's lunch, sent him on mindless errands, dropped books on his groin while he was sleeping, offered his services to Cuddy, purposely mistook his heritage, invited his father to join them, treated him like a child, called him names, threw things at him, and other assorted mischief that no normal person would put up with. And Chase would meet all of it with a placid, dopey look, and eye roll, and say, "of course, Dr. House." Nobody should be that laid back, maybe Chase was a pot smoker or maybe one day he walk in and pull out a shot gun. Who knew.

Then something written by Wilson caught his eye. "After talking to Dr. Chase's father, I feel that he would be perfect to work with Dr. House. He has years of experience dealing with crotchety, controlling, and abusive older men and addicts." This gave him pause.

More than once he had heard Chase mention things about addicts and drugs. He just assumed that Chase had been a recreational user when he was younger, like most rich kids. But there had always been that annoying, niggly little memory of going through Lucy's home and Chase commenting about "Enough organization, enough lists, you think you can control the uncontrollable. Fix her meds, fix her clothes, maybe you can even fix her." And then later, "Yeah, right. I'm rich, I couldn't possibly understand what this kid is going through. Just because you're drinking pricier stuff doesn't mean you don't have a problem."

Foreman thought for a moment. Maybe Wilson was trying to steer him towards painting Chase as a drunk. It might work, even though he almost never saw Chase drink and when he did it was clear the Aussie was a light weight. For god's sake, he had seen toothpick Cameron drink the Aussie under the table. But why else would Chase always assume drugs and alcohol was the reason for everything?

He continued to read through Wilson and Cuddy's notes about Chase. Wilson at one point went so far as to say that he thought Chase should be forced into psych treatment but didn't say why. That was annoying. Then there was the psych report itself.

All the doctors coming into the hospital had to go through a psych exam with one of the doctors already at the hospital. Foreman's had been very laid back and relaxed because he had had nothing to hide. He had nightmares imagining what House's must have been like, but then again maybe he was grandfathered. He started to read Chase's.

"Dr. Pronásledovat, or Chase, as he would rather be called seems to exhibit several pathologies. From interviews with former colleagues and friends, in addition to speaking with him my self I have determined that none of them would prevent him from working at PPTH.

Test scores: Dr. Chase's test scores are in line with Hospital guidelines and his standardized IQ score is 198." Foreman paused to seethe, that was 34 points higher than his own. He calmed himself by remembering that the test was geared towards making white males score the highest because of culturally biased questions. He read on. "This is rather impressive given that he comes from a different country and foreigners generally don't score as high.

He is a creative cognitive thinker and very left brain oriented. This stands is sharp contrast to the standard mien for most research or teaching doctors, but closer to Dr. House's scores.

Personality: Dr. Chase seems calm and friendly upon first meeting but when pushed, becomes uncomfortable and anxious about any personal information. His anxiety level rises dramatically when questioned about his family or background. At one point during the interview, he turned his back to stare out of the window and did not turn back around until the subject was changed. The question to illicit this response involved why he chose not to remain in Australia and practice with his father.

He is professionally confident but personally insecure. He also appears to exhibit strong avoidance techniques and passive aggressive tendencies." Foreman gave a big amen to that. Chase was the king of passive aggressiveness. While Foreman would confront someone and Cameron would guilt them, Chase would run. House called them his fighter, his waffler, and his avoider. And the names fit well. Chase was the type of person who would let you rip him to pieces and never say a word in his own defense then turn around and poison your coffee when no one was looking. Come to think of it, he better not eat or drink anything Chase gave him for a week or two.

As Foreman continued, he began to become uncomfortable with what he read. "Evaluation: Dr. Chase is a classic Adult Child of an Alcoholic. He strongly exhibits the co dependant tendencies and has a classic empathy driven mood orientation. Placing him with Dr. House has the potential to be very good for Dr. House but very damaging for Dr. Chase. I recommend keeping Dr. Chase in therapy for at least the first 6 months of the fellowship."

Foreman sighed and thought and what he thought about made him very uncomfortable. He got up and went to his computer and looked up "Adult Child of an Alcoholic" and began to read through the information and started to feel his stomach sink as he read through the characteristics and applied them to Chase.

" Adult Children of Alcoholics often exhibit one or more of these tendencies.

1. guess at what normal behavior is. (One of the first things he had noticed about Chase was that his reactions were often completely inappropriate or a half second behind everyone else's. And if there was no one else there for him to pattern himself after he fell back on sarcastic comebacks. Like the whole spaghetti line to Gabe's parents.)

2. have difficulty following a project through from beginning to end. (He hadn't noticed that Chase did this too often. In fact he generally stayed with patients the longest. But maybe his many residencies showed it.)

3. lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth. (He didn't know enough about Chase's life to answer this one. But if lies of omission counted then hell yeah.)

4. judge themselves without mercy. (Chase had been pretty hard on himself about that angio screw up. It was a simple mistake any of them could

have made.)

5. have difficulty having fun. (Well, Chase seemed to be able to have fun or at least look like he was having fun.)

6. take themselves very seriously. (Ok, this was totally the opposite. Chase never seemed to take himself or too many other people seriously. That was one of the things that drove Foreman nuts about him.)

7. have difficulty with intimate relationships because of trust problems or abandonment issues. (It appeared Chase had even had trouble with simple friendships.)

8. over-react to changes over which they have no control. (That completely summed up Chase's reaction to Volger)

9. constantly seek approval and affirmation. (Another big yes. Chase always subtly trying to get House to tell him he had done a good job, but then again House almost never told anyone they had done a good job.)

10. usually feel that they are different from other people. (That Foreman wasn't sure about)

11. are super-responsible or super-irresponsible. (He noticed often with House, Chase was the

responsible one. He made sure House ate and his laundry was done and that his clinic hours were

covered. It was never as blatant as what Cameron did because he went out of his way to not call

attention to it. However, it was also seemed far more ingrained in Chase to organize House's life

without thinking about it.)

12. are extremely loyal even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved. (He was very loyal to House, to the point of stupidity, at least until Volger.)

13. are impulsive. They tend to lock themselves into a course of action without giving serious consideration to alternative behaviors or possible consequences. (Again Volger explained to a tee. Chase probably didn't think through what talking to Volger would mean. He just panicked and reacted without thinking.)"

Foreman scrubbed his hand over his face. It all fit, but he just couldn't reconcile happy go lucky Chase with all these problems and so much depth, even when they were staring him in the face. Chase was a soulless Surfer Ken doll. He wasn't allowed to have problems. He was the good looking rich kid, he wasn't allowed secrets.

"So, differential diagnosis?" Wilson asked as he laid two sub sandwiches on the table. Both had a large pickle rapped on the side.

"That I am thoroughly confused." Foreman rose and sat at the table, unwrapping his sandwich. It was a Philly steak, his favourite.

"Confused about what? The files weren't that complex." Wilson pulled a long pepper out of his sandwich and ate it separately.

"Why did you show them to me?"

"I thought it would be obvious."

"To House maybe, but not to me. I need a little help figuring out your motives."

Wilson smiled shyly and looked like a handsome kid. "You'll learn I'm not nearly as complex and confusing as House. My motives are usually pretty simple. I just want people to get along and be happy. And from what I saw earlier today, things didn't look too happy."

"Chase screwed up and almost killed that kid. He deserved to be yelled at and it was nothing worse than what House would have done to him." Foreman defended himself.

"Three subtle differences though, 1. You aren't Chase's boss, in fact he in the ICU he is an attending and out ranks you plus he has more seniority. 2. House would have yelled about his mistake, not attacked him personally and not in front of the patient's family. Do you really think they are going to have any confidence in him now?" Foreman looked down at his food feeling chastised. "And 3. Chase didn't screw up." Wilson produced a third file bent open to the history taken by Foreman. "You never put in a notation that he was allergic to shellfish."

Foreman stared in disbelief at the file. He clearly remembered the family telling him that their son was allergic to shellfish. How could he have forgotten to put it in there? "You mean I screwed up?" He asked.

"It's been known to happen to the best of us." Wilson tried to soothe before Foreman went into some self effacing rant. "It was a simple mistake and Chase managed to cover your ass about it." He emphasized Chase and your, making Foreman feel about 2 inches tall.

"So you think I owe him an apology?"

"I think you owe him some understanding and a little respect."

"Why do you care?" Foreman shot back defensively, trying not to think about the things he had said to Chase.

"Maybe I empathize with a young, fresh faced doctor that no one treats with respect because he is younger and boyishly handsome." Wilson smiled again, clearly describing himself. "Or maybe because Chase is a good guy who doesn't deserve your shit."

"Good guy? He is a stuck up, rich brat, who thinks he is better than everyone else."

"Or, maybe he is a quiet, shy kid, who is 15,000 miles away from home."

"So now you are playing favourites like House?"

"No, I just happen to like Chase and have gained a new respect for him since I have been in contact with his father." Wilson leaned back and sipped at his drink.

There was a puzzler, Rowan Chase. That was the most emotional and off balance Foreman had ever seen Chase. Even House had seemed worried about him. He had been rude to the family, snapped at Cameron, and been pissy towards House for almost two weeks afterwards. And the really funny thing was, House actually seemed contrite for having butted into Chase's family life. For a month afterwards Foreman could almost see him wearing spiky armour and a neon sign reading "stay away."

Wilson slid over another folder. Where was he getting all these folder from anyway? Foreman thought. "I need a consult." Foreman looked at the diagnosis and the treatment and the eventual time line. Stage four lung cancer, not good, maybe three months. He looked at the date, scratch that, make it one month. Then he looked at the name, Rowan Pronásledovat. He recognized that word, Chase's father. He looked up at Wilson, in shock. "Chase doesn't know, so don't tell him. Not that you can anyway since now you are a consulting doctor."

"What do you mean he doesn't know?" Foreman was incredulous. If it were his father or anyone in his family, he would be on the first plane back to Los Angeles.

"I mean, Rowan never told him. He wants to spare his son the unpleasantnesses of watching someone slowly suffocate from cancer." He let the facts sink into the younger doctor for a moment, then took a chance. This could all blow up in his face. "He didn't want Robert to sit beside his bed and see him die by inches the way Chase saw his mother die."

"Chase's mother is dead?"

"Yup, hepatocellular carcinoma from severe cirrhosis. Not a pretty cancer, not that any of them are, but liver cancer is one of the worst to see. According to Rowan she was a heavy drinker and drug user. He said he was too until he cleaned up. I think he said Robert would have been about 9 or 10 then. She died right after his 16th birthday. Bled out in the foyer of their house as Rowan described it. Apparently they managed to resuscitate her when they reached the hospital but she was clinically brain dead. He had to wait through weeks of highly publicized legal wrangling to let a 16 year-old sign papers to shut off life support. Apparently it was a national case on par with Schiavo. Something about a 16 year old not having the mental or moral ability to make that sort of decision." Wilson paused for dramatic effect. "Could you imagine, having to make that kind of call when you were 16? Basically rendering yourself and orphan before you are old enough to drive?"

"But he wouldn't have been an orphan. His father is still alive." Foreman pointed out.

"Rowan said that he hadn't talked to his son in almost a year when she died. He then said that after her funeral Robert stayed with him in Melbourne for two weeks, told him what had happened and then Rowan felt so guilty he didn't talk to Robert again for 2 years. So for all intents and purposes he was an orphan. But then again the way Rowan described his mother's drunken behaviour and frequent disappearances, he was probably pretty self sufficient for some time before that.

"But he was lucky it didn't affect his school work. After all he was already in college by then, or as they call it University. They have this 6 year program thing where you skip all the stupid history and English stuff we had to take and go straight for the major courses. Think about it." Foreman did. "When you were 16 you were a sophomore in high school and committing petty crimes. Chase was dealing with his mother's death and the fact that he had to be the one to sign the termination paper, no easy feat for a devout Catholic, and doing the course work of a junior in college. Pretty impressive."

"Wait, why did he have to sign the paper? I would assume any relative could do it." Foreman thought. He was still trying to process the information. So Chase's did know what Luke was going through.

"You read the file, both his parents were from other countries. They married and moved to Australia without their respective families. His closest family member was an aunt in Namibia somewhere."

"Chase is Catholic?"

"Yes, he even spent time in seminary school before starting medical school. He also was accepted to the Art program at the Sorbonne in Paris. He has several pieces of his work on display in Australia, mostly abstract stuff, not my taste but still impressive."

Foreman did a double take on that one. Chase as a priest, he was sure all the Catholic School girls would love that. And Chase as an artist. Ok, he had seen his fellow duckling draw colouring books with Kammi the Kola for very young patients and he was always doodling on his crosswords, but an artist. "Artist?" He managed to croak.

"Yes, apparently his mother was a ballerina and after having children became a very well known photographer and artist. I guess she taught Chase some of her tricks. If you ever get bored look her name up on the internet. She was a babe. You can see where Chase got his looks. But he became a doctor, not an artist and a damn good one too."

"Yes, I guess he did."

"And you owe him an apology."

"Yeah, I guess I do."

"What is it about him you don't like?" Wilson was all ears now. Trying to mend bridges and lower stress in the department to help House.

Foreman thought for a moment. "He is too laid back about everything. He sucks up to House too much. He never stands up for himself. And House totally plays favourites with him."

"He is pretty laid back. But while that might be a detriment for an oncologist, immunologist, or a neurologist it is a serious plus for an intensivist. He doesn't get rattled about things and when people code you don't want the person trying to prove they are the best or thinking about abstract medical problems, you want the person who does the job with a level head and moves on."

"I guess." Foreman sulkily conceded.

"As for sucking up to House, that is more complex. But in the end, I think Chase is just looking for someone to be proud of him."

"Most of us moved out of that stage when we were twelve." Foreman snarked.

"No, most people don't ever move out of that stage, it just becomes less important. But I sometimes get the idea that Chase has never had anyone say they were proud of him."

"Going to college at 16 and having a 4.0 and no one said they were proud of him? I don't believe that for a minute."

"Think about it, Eric, you were the first person in your family to go to college right?" Foreman nodded his ascent. "So anything beyond what was cultural and family expected of you was a bonus. When you graduated from high school you had a party right? And even bigger one for college? When you made dean's list your family freaked and called you a wonder boy? When you graduated from med school there was probably Foremans lined up around the block to see you walk the stage? Am I right?"

"So my family was supportive and proud of me, so what?"

"So Chase's wasn't. Everything that you did would have just been expected of Chase. The bar was set so impossibly high for him that nothing short of perfection would have garnered him praise. Everything he achieved would have just been expected of him as normal. After all you don't congratulate a kid for colouring a picture so why should you congratulate the son of a medical genius for graduating med school?"

"Even still, I'm sure someone has said they were proud of him at some point in his life, or he wouldn't have had the confidence to do anything."

"It was a hyperbole, my friend. It would be difficult for someone as smart as Chase to not have confidence in his intellect, what I was talking about was the broader sense of self confidence that comes from knowing that there are people who will care about you no matter what."

"So you think Chase thinks House will care about him no matter what. The only thing House cares about is his Vicodin." Foreman said dismissively.

Wilson shot him a dark look. James Wilson did not like being faced with the fact that his friendship to House might in fact be one sided. "No, I think that Chase has glommed on to House as some sort of demented daddy replacement and thinks that if he does enough things right maybe his new daddy won't be quite as demanding and distant as his old daddy. Sort of sick and depressing for Chase really."

"Yeah, if he thinks House is ever going to say anything nice about him to his face other than complimenting his looks, homeboy is sorely mistaken." Foreman joked.

"Yes, he is. And the fact that he chose House to latch onto rather than someone a lot nicer and a lot more giving says way too much about his relationship with the senior Chase. But that isn't important."

"Does House even know?"

"Well I guess that brings us to complaint number four, that House plays favourties. I think on some level House knows and takes obscene advantage of it. House likes his ducklings damaged, a little scratched around the edges, but I don't think he realizes just how broken Chase is."

"House knows everything, I thought."

"He doesn't know any of this. I haven't told him." Now Foreman was shocked. "I wasn't sure how he was going to react. Depending on his dosage he might take his intensivist under his wing and pet him till he falls asleep or take a chisel to Chase's cracks and shatter him completely. Proverbially speaking.

"But whether House wants to admit it or not, he does care about Chase. I think he sees a lot of himself when he was younger in the Aussie. For different reasons of course. Chase was warped and damaged by his circumstances while I think Greg was just born defensive,." Wilson smiled to show he really didn't think ill of his best friend. "Plus Chase is the perfect duckling for him. He does what he is told, rarely causes trouble, doesn't challenge him, covers for him whether he is too stoned to go to work or just doesn't want to go to the clinic, doesn't follow him around making cow eyes at him, and is a damn good doctor."

"Chase covers for him?"

"All the time. House will sign into the clinic and Chase will actually see the patients. I really shouldn't let him do it but oh well." Wilson shrugged. "But he does it on bigger stuff too. Did you really think House had eaten 'bad clams' last month when Chase took him home?" Wilson was referring to a morning last month when Foreman had come in to find Chase holding House up over a trash can while the elder man puked. Chase had claimed it was bad clams and said he was going to take House home. Cameron at offered to help, but Chase had rather rudely warned her away. The Aussie had then bodily dragged the shaky, staggering doctor out of the building.

"House was drunk, wasn't he?"

"Off his ass. Why do you think Chase always get here first, so he can make sure House is fit to work that day and if not get him home and come up with an excuse why he isn't. He's quite adept at it too, he can spot a drunk or a druggy at 100 paces. He is even better at telling if House is inebriated than I am. I guess experience will do that."

"So House plays favourites with him so that Chase can continue to co enable his drug habit, nice. If I give him a morphine drip, will I be his new best friend?"

"No, he doesn't like morphine, it makes him nauseous. Look Foreman, I'm not trying to convince you that the kid is without faults, in fact he has a lot of them, but most of them hurt him more than others. He isn't perfect but also isn't nearly as bad as you think he is. So give him a break and don't give him any more crap for a while."

"We are supposed to be hunky dory now that I found out he had a shitty childhood? So have a lot of people and they aren't as annoying as Chase."

"I don't give Rowan more than a month to 6 week to live and Chase is going to take his death pretty hard. Especially when he finds out that his father was sick when he was here and didn't say anything." He sighed. "And neither did House."

"House knew?"

Wilson nodded his head "yes." "He figured it out somehow."

"Well why in the hell didn't he tell him?"

"Maybe because Rowan asked him not to and it really wasn't his place to say anything. But in the end, I think he didn't because he knew Chase would go home and take care of Rowan and he doesn't want to loose him."

"Maybe House just wants to be the one to tell him so he can see him cry." Foreman sniped, feeling his chest constrict at the thought of House telling him that his own father was dead.

"That might be part of it. I think House wants to tell him so that Chase won't be alone when he finds out."

Foreman thought about that. It was cold. He felt bad for Chase, it could really screw with someone's head to find out that neither one of their 'Daddies' cared enough about their feelings give them a chance at closure.

"Look I don't mean that you two should be best friends for life, just go easy on him until this whole thing blows over. Then you can go back to treating him like you're so much better than he is." Wilson rose and collected the trash. "I need to get home, I'll see you tomorrow."

Foreman numbly nodded his head. He sat still for a while longer trying to process everything that he had learned. He briefly thought about going by the ICU to check on Chase and the patient but thought better of it. He needed to get home so he could hear some music and clear his head. He pulled on his coat and headed home.

TBC


	2. Chase

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these people nor would I really want to. They seem like a lot of trouble and doctors always have such huge egos. :)

**Conflict 2**

Chase felt tired and shaky after the adrenaline rush of saving the patient. Allergic reactions happened so quickly that there was never time to do anything more than react. No time to think or analyze, just get the patient stable enough for a specialist. And Chase had done that. No easy feat with Foreman getting in his way and the staff unsure who to listen to. Foreman was bigger, louder, and more assertive than Chase but the ICU staff was more used to working with him. Somehow, they had managed to work together long enough to stabilize the kid and then Foreman had laid into him.

The first part of the rant had been rather loud so Chase had politely asked that they move out of the ICU because loud noises were discouraged in there. He had assumed, wrongly so, that Foreman would go back to their conference room, not continue to read him the riot act in the middle of the hallway. Oh well. He hummed a little tune in his head and pretended to listen to the big, black man rant.

It was a defense mechanism he had learned long, long ago. If he didn't listen to what people yelled at him then it couldn't hurt his feelings. His father wasn't much of a yeller, unless he was tanked, but Mum, now she had a temper. One minute she would be screaming and the next telling him how much she loved him. It used to make him dizzy. Maybe that was why House didn't much faze him. House was like the family Chase light.

He moved from a stupid tune to mentally reciting the Rosary in as many languages as he could remember. English and Latin he knew backwards and forwards they were too easy. Czech, Afrikaans, and Dutch he remembered well. Spanish, French, and Italian were a bit tougher but he thought he got most of it right. Greek, now there was a tough one. He got tripped up after the Hail Mary. He chewed on the inside of his lip in thought.

It was on the tip of his mental tongue when Foreman shouted, "you better start sucking House's dick if you intend to keep your job after this screw up, junior."

Chase coldly asked permission to return to the patient then re entered the ICU. He knew Foreman wouldn't follow him. This wasn't Foreman's place, but Chase's. He looked down at the 10 year old boy and noted his vitals. Pulse was up and so was blood pressure, but that could easily be explained from the epi shots. He told the nurse to monitor the patient closely and check vitals every 15 minutes for the next 2 hours and to page him if anything changed.

He then slunk out of the door and tried not to look at the family glaring at him in the corner. Why had Foreman chosen to yell at him in front of the patient's family? They would probably ask to have him removed from the case, which Foreman would just love even though it was his fault this happened. He headed towards the stairs and the diagnostics department conference room when he hesitated for a moment. Foreman might go there and Foreman was the last person he wanted to see. So he did an about face and headed towards the clinic. He wasn't likely to run into anyone from his department there.

"Chase." Wilson called after him as he saw him pass. Big hearted Jimmy felt he needed to assure himself that Chase was alright after the fight.

"Yes, Dr. Wilson." Chase stopped and turned around, not exactly meeting Wilson's eyes. He was still a bit off balance after Foreman and Wilson was way too kind and caring for him to be around right now. It was hard to keep up his defenses when faced with someone as nice as Wilson could be. He never, ever, had the spontaneous urge to open up to mean old House like he sometimes did with Wilson. Though, oddly enough the few times he had opened up had been around House but those had usually been more from anger and being completely worn down with House's constant machinations and scrutiny.

Wilson looked at the younger doctor for a moment. He looked tired and beaten down. Not surprising, Cameron had a cold and couldn't stay with the patient last night so Chase had. And then the fight with Foreman must have been a bit mentally draining. Part of him wanted to shake the younger doctor and tell him to go back and yell at Foreman, while another part wanted to give him a brotherly hug. But the third part won out and he said. "Do you want to go get some lunch?"

Wilson hadn't started out liking Chase, in fact he really disliked him. Chase was another good looking, younger doctor that House was taking an interest in. But he hadn't worried. Most of House's fellows didn't last more than a month. But a month then two when by and Chase was still there so he had decided to dig deeper. He remembered Chase's first face to face interview. When House had mentioned Rowan's phone call, Wilson had pondered over the twin looks of anger and betrayal thinly veiled by his Aussie no worries attitude.

But eventually Wilson had gotten used to him, and then started to like him. Chase had a wicked sense of humour that leaned strongly towards the dry British variety. He could snark and snipe right along with House and Wilson and never miss a beat even if his statements were sometimes esoteric. Then of course there was the fun of playing on his unfamiliarity with American pop culture. It had taken him two weeks to figure out why people kept calling him Doogie.

Even after the other ducklings were hired, Chase remained Wilson's favourite to hang out with. Cameron was too high maintenance and Foreman was too prickly. Maybe he just needed to get to know them better. But then Chase had done the unforgivable and ratted out House to Volger. Wilson had been livid. But what he couldn't understand at the time was why House hadn't been angry. It had taken half a bottle of bourbon and a night on House's couch for him to figure it out.

Some time ago.

Wilson sipped at his drink, already tipsy and realizing that there was no way he could drive home. He kicked off his shoes and wiggled his toes. "So when are you going to axe Benedict Arnold?"

"I thought we was already dead unless you found some way to raise the dead and force them to work for you, evil little minx."

"I meant Chase."

"I'm not." House answered nonchalantly.

"Why not, he ratted you out. He turned on you like an ex wife."

"Yeah, but he has a better ass than most of your ex wives and is actually a natural blonde to boot."

"Far beside the point."

"He didn't do anything Foreman hasn't done before."

"Foreman didn't run to Volger but Cuddy."

"She was in charge at the time."

"Huge difference, no one's job was in danger when Foreman talked to Cuddy. And that was based on concern for a patient. Chase did it out of spite and selfish desire to keep his job."

"Let's say maybe I deserved it."

"I doubt you deserved it."

"Believe it or not Jimmy, sometimes I am less than nice to people." House looked wide eyed at his friend.

"I never noticed. But unless you dug up his mother's corpse and had sex with her on his bed, I can't see that you could have done anything that would warrant his behaviour."

"I came close. Besides, have you seen pictures of her, what a babe. I bet he had lots of friends coming over to his house after school for cookies and fantasies."

"I'm sure he did. But stop changing the subject, what did you do?"

"I may have, sort of, well, messed with his head a little bit."

"How?

"Just a teeny little bit. Nothing major."

"How?"

"Not important."

"Very important."

"Ok, I sort of told him I didn't care about him and purposely tried to make him flip out and when he did, I sort of got mad at him about it and was even meaner to him and then I felt." House paused here and looked up. "What is that emotion that is the opposite of self-satisfied?"

"You mean guilty?" Wilson supplied.

"Maybe not that far, but we'll use that word for now."

"That's it? That's nothing worse than you have done to other people."

"Yeah, but I threatened him right where he lives. I knew I was doing it but kept doing it just to make him squirm because I thought it was fun and because I thought he needed to be taught a lesson. I enjoyed watching him melt down when Rowan was here because I didn't realize just how screwed up things were between them. And even after I found out I still kept doing it just because I thought it might help. But in the end all I did was make things a whole lot worse."

"I knew about that. But I thought he said he didn't care about his father."

"Yeah, his lame little speech about not caring? I'm not sure if that was to convince me or himself. Anyway afterwards, I got kind of drunk and was feeling, that word you used."

"Guilty." Wilson deadpanned.

"Yeah. And I went over to his apartment. While I was there I sort of said some nasty things to him and sort of told him that I didn't believe him and made him cry a little bit."

"You went to his apartment and made him cry?"

"Only a little, but man does he hold grudges."

"I don't blame him. What did you say to him?"

"Now that really isn't important. Besides, I'm not sure I remember. Anyway, a few days later, he screws up the angio and I read him the riot act."

"He deserved it, he screwed up."

"He didn't even want to be there that day. I made him come to work even though he called in sick."

"I still don't see how this vindicates him. He should be used to you by now."

"Damn it, you have read the kid's psych profile. I totally handled things the wrong way and he freaked."

"It isn't your job to hold their hands." Wilson paused for a moment. "I can not believe I just said that to you. Am I still awake?" House threw an ice cube at him, hitting Wilson squarely between the eyes. "I'm awake alright."

"I know it isn't. But I held him over a Bunsen burner for too long and I really shouldn't be surprised he melted down."

"So you're not mad at him?"

"Hell yes I am mad at him. But I'm not going to fire him just because I am mad at him. Let's just say that I deserved what he did to me and he deserves what I am doing to him. Soon we will be back to our dysfunctional little selves and everything will be coming up roses." What House hadn't wanted to admit, even to Wilson, was how much it hurt that Chase had betrayed him. Oh, he realized it made sense. He knocked Chase down and then kicked dirt on him like he did to everyone. It was how he dealt with things, pushing people away when he felt too much. So he really wasn't surprised when Chase stabbed him in the back as soon as he turned around because that was how Chase dealt with things. It was a little dance they had been doing for months, this was just the most drastic it had become. He almost got the idea that Chase was taunting him so that he would fire the younger doctor so that Chase could run away like he always did. They were a sad, sad pair and House wouldn't trade him for all the Foremans or Camerons in the world.

"Ok, but I would fire him."

Present.

After he had woken up the next morning, Wilson had thought about it. He realized that Chase had seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown the entire time his father had been there and for weeks afterwards had been jumpy, peevish, and distracted. House had been right, he had pushed too hard and in typical passive aggressive form, Chase had pushed back. But unlike House, Wilson wasn't convinced that anger had been the only motive. He figured that deep down, their own little walking, talking, Aussie abandonment issue had wigged out at the thought of anything threatening his security.

Most people would assume that Foreman and House were the most alike. They were both smart, pompous, holier than thou, and stubborn. But those were only surface traits, deep down Chase and House were far more similar. Both of them fully utilized the same defense mechanisms to protect themselves. They kept people at arms' length as a way of keeping emotional control over a given situation. But it was when they lost control that they were different. House would be mean and push the other person away, like he had done to Cameron when she got too close. But Chase didn't normally have the heart to be that mean, so he ran away.

When Rowan had shown up, both men quickly lost control of the situation. When House found out about how sick Rowan was, and was faced with loosing Chase, he became mean and hurtful towards his intensivist because he finally figured out how much he cared. While Chase felt betrayed by House's manipulations and ran away from him to the first person he could find, Volger. It was all very complicated and he doubted even Chase knew why he had turned on House.

However, once Wilson had thought through all of this, it wasn't hard for him to forgive Chase. Besides, once you got past Chase's contrived laid back attitude and his stand offish streak and his secretive nature, he wasn't such a bad guy. He was no worse than House any way. And Chase had never called his wife a "heifer" to her face like House had.

Chase looked down at his watch and realized it was almost 1:30 and he hadn't eaten since 6 am. "Sure." Chase shrugged and followed the oncologist towards the stairs.

Once seated, Wilson watched Chase mix his pasta up with peas, vinegar, and olive oil. It looked much better than the runny, red sauce he had on his. The cafeteria had started keeping a small container of vinegar around just for Chase after he started working here. He tended to use it quite frequently.

"So tell me about that fight with Foreman." Wilson moved right in. If he let Chase control the conversation it would be 6 months before he ever brought it up.

"What about it?" The Aussie dodged the question by postulating one of his own.

"What happened? Why was Foreman yelling in the middle of the hallway?" Wilson watched Robert push a piece of pasta around his plate, refusing to make eye contact. "You know I will find out eventually and maybe I can help smooth things over with House if you tell me what you did wrong."

"Why do you automatically assume I did something wrong?" Chase asked.

Wilson swallowed whatever he was going to say. Why did he assume Chase was the one who screwed up? "Maybe because Foreman was yelling at you and not the other way around." It was a lame response and Wilson knew it.

"I don't yell at people, you know that." Chase put his fork down giving up all pretense of eating after only picking at his food.

"I know, just tell me what happened."

"What difference does it make?"

"Chase," Wilson said firmly. "I am on the board of directors and I have right to know why two doctors are quarrelling in the middle of the hallway like grammar school kids."

"The patient went into anaphylactic shock. We got it under control. Foreman was angry it happened." Chase only gave the barest facts.

"What caused it?"

"Iodine in the contrast." Chase pronounced it Iodeen.

"Shellfish allergy?" Wilson questioned and Chase shook his head in the affirmative. "That is a pretty severe allergy to have ignored."

"I didn't ignore it. It wasn't in the history or the allergy chart."

"Who took the history?"

"Foreman, he forgot to put it in the record."

"Why didn't you tell him?" Wilson decided he would check, just to make sure that Foreman had forgotten it. That was a pretty severe breach of protocol, if so.

"He didn't give me much of a chance, besides, he'll find out eventually."

"But you could have stood up for yourself and pointed out he was wrong."

"Why bother, he wouldn't have listened." Chase glumly stared into his drink.

"Then you should have at least taken a swing at him for that last comment, how rude was that?" Wilson tried to lighten the mood.

"He would have just hit me back and I have grown rather fond of having all my features facing front."

"I guess. But you could have stood up for scrawny, little white boys everywhere."

"Let someone else be your hero, I have no liberal guilt over slavery."

Wilson giggled at that and let the rest of the time pass by amicably. Soon Chase returned to check on the patient and split his time between the ICU and the clinic in hopes of avoiding his colleagues. It worked well but by the end of the day he was exhausted. He was so tired he took the elevator back up to collect his things. He was not looking forward to his 8 kilometer, he still had problems thinking in miles, bike ride home. When he reached the doors he saw that Cameron was leaving.

"Chase." She nodded politely.

"Cameron." He echoed her cool, professional greeting. Maybe once, they could have been friends but now they were just colleagues. He looked around and noticed that Foreman's things were packed. "Where is Foreman?"

"I don't know, he was on his way out I think." She said as she pulled her gloves on.

"But someone has to stay on call."

"Well I can't do it." She sniffled for effect.

"Never mind, I guess I'll do it." Chase turned around sharply and headed back towards the ICU.

"Chase, wait." He stopped but didn't turn around.

"I'm sure Foreman didn't mean what he said earlier. He just cares so much about the patients. The fact that you endangered one really bothered him. He will forgive you soon."

"Good of him."

"Really, Chase, Foreman is just trying to look out for all of us. When one of us messes up it makes the whole department look bad." She tried to appease. She reached a hand out but Chase's tensing caused her to drop her hand, aborting the attempt like she always did. She had no right to touch him and one day she would learn that.

"You mean it makes him look bad and we can't have that. Foreman doesn't care about anything but his reputation."

"That's not very nice. Eric is a good person and a good doctor. You should be nicer to him. You could learn a lot from him."

"Like how to take a proper history?" He still hadn't turned around but he could see her reflection in the glass door. She was getting annoyed, which vaguely pleased him.

"Among other things. You really need to stop taking things so personally. He was angry. He didn't mean it. It will all be forgotten by tomorrow. Or maybe tonight if you apologize and tell him you are sorry. We'll all talk to House for you. He won't be that mad. I'm sure I can talk him out of doing anything drastic, even Foreman will help." She spoke softly, trying her best to console him.

"I really don't think that is necessary. And maybe Foreman should spend less time worrying about smoothing things over for me and more time paying attention. Because if he did, he might have noticed that he screwed up and I didn't." Chase spat out. He was tired and in no mood for Cameron's well meaning meddling. He walked away before she could say anything else.

Bloody Foreman telling people that he had screwed up! Bastard! And the fact that everyone believed him. He seethed as he took the stairs two at a time. Rage was lending him energy. And when House got back tomorrow, he would agree with Foreman without ever looking at the chart. He started to grind his teeth in frustration and had to consciously relax his jaw enough to force a pen between his molars. Left side this time since it was after lunch. He could already feel a pretty bad headache starting at his temples.

He reached the ICU doors and walked in, taking his stethoscope out of his pocket and putting his around his neck. He smiled at the new nurse at the nurses' station. It must be after six because they had changed since the last time he came up here.

"Good evening Dr. Chase." She smiled shyly back. She was pale and over weight. So not his type it wasn't funny, but he pleasantly smiled back.

"How is my kid doing?" He leaned over the counter to look at the monitors.

"Fine, Dr. Chase." She made cow eyes at him.

Ok, he was going to go nuts if he had to put up with this all night. She was new; this was only her second week here. Soon she would get over it or he would ask to have her transferred. One or the other, but he really shouldn't have to put up with this from his nurses. Maybe he should just kiss Foreman in the hallway and make everyone think they were both gay. That would solve his nurse problem and get back at the bastard. He pondered as he walked back to the lounge, saying over his shoulder. "Page me if anything changes."

The ICU lounge was the crumbiest lounge in the hospital. They didn't even have TV. It was, in fact, two cots stuffed in the corner of a locker room. Mostly this was due to the ICU only having its own doctors for a little over a year now. Before hand, other attendings cared for their own patients in the ICU, rather than having trained intensivists becoming attendings or consults on critical patients. Chase didn't mind though because it was quiet and out of the way. No one would bother him here.

He walked in and saw Dr. Hope Gardner, collapsed on a cot, her arm thrown over her face. She looked pale. "Hey, Hope, you ok?" He asked.

"No." She croaked without moving.

"Morning sickness again?" He questioned around the pen he had stuffed back in his mouth. Dr. Gardner was pregnant with twins and suffering for it.

"Yup." She looked pitiful. "By the way, what are you still doing here? I thought you were sprung for the night." She slowly sat up and looked at him in the dim light.

"I was, but then my springer decided he would rather go home instead." He shrugged then added. "I'll be here till at least 6 am. If you want to go home, I'll cover your shift for you." He didn't mind, Dr. Gardner was nice to him. She always brought him left over from her holiday meals. She was a great cook, which was all the better for her because she was frighteningly ugly and he couldn't imagine what else her husband might have seen in her at first. But, then again, her husband was just as much of a disproportionate circus freak as she was. He feared for their children.

"Really? You don't mind?" She perked up.

"Naw. I don't. Why should we both be stuck here? Go home, put your feet up, eat crackers, drink ginger ale. Whatever makes you feel better." He smiled at her.

"Thank you." She slid herself to the end of her cot and pulled out her coat and gloves. "There are no new patients so hopefully nothing too exciting." She pulled her coat on and slowly rose. She LOVED Dr. Chase. He was the nicest doctor there and pretty to look at. She couldn't believe that he was actually part of bastard House's department. He always worked holidays so all the other doctors could stay home with their families. He was the not merely the only single doctor rotating in the Anesthesia and ICU department but the only one with no kids. She had heard from the nurses what had happened earlier and she was mad. How dare some stuck up neurologist come into their ICU and tell them how to run it. The nerve! She would have to remember to bring Chase some dinner soon.

"Hope you feel better, luv." He called as she left. He then pulled down all the charts and scanned through them quickly. Nope, nothing new, since he had been here three hours ago.

He put the charts up and leaned lied down on the thin cot with his hands behind his head. He could still hear the noises from the ward and the quiet clicking of the nurse's playing solitary on their computers. Now that he was mostly alone and relaxed he thought about Foreman and felt his jaw muscles clenching again. What did he know about Foreman? Foreman was smart. House respected him. He was a very good doctor. He was a pompous ass. He had a superiority complex. He didn't like Chase. He was from California somewhere. He was dating a fat drug rep. He liked to confront people.

Those were the obvious things, but then there were other things that Chase had divined about his fellow duckling. Like that Foreman hadn't grown up with money. His things were far too ostentatious and gaudy for someone with refined taste. He bought an expensive car and lived in a big flat to impress people. But he skimped on luxury items like belts and shoes. Chase's mother had always told him that there were three sure signs of money, bed linens, shoes, and table settings. The logic being that someone who wasn't raised around other rich snobs wouldn't know there was $1,000 sheets for sale or that a cordial set could cost $3,000.

He disagreed with Cameron about Foreman caring about patients that was her schick. Foreman was a typical neurologist. He was pompous, high handed, and used patients to prove how smart he was. After all you could tell a lot about at doctor's personality by their specialty. Plastic surgeons were vain and money hungry. ER doctors liked a thrill but had short attention spans. Surgeons usually had god complexes. Neurologists wanted everyone to see how smart they were. Immunologists liked to help people feel better. Infectious disease specialists liked puzzles. So, what about intensivists, he thought? Well, maybe they just liked peace and quiet. No, those were pathologists.

No, he didn't think that Foreman cared any more than House did. As to say that Foreman cared on a conceptual level about the patients but on a personal level he couldn't care less. Solving the case and helping them was just a way to show how great he is. If he got it right then the other ducklings never heard the end of it. If he got it wrong it was just one of the many wrong choices they all made. Bloody bullocks was what it was.

He could also tell that Foreman was close to his family. He was always going to visit them every chance he got. He had some how managed to only work one holiday while Chase had worked every single one. He talked frequently about his parents and his grand mother. Foreman and Cameron often shared tales of crisp Christmas mornings and chilly Thanksgivings. The one time they had managed to draw Chase into the discussion, he had pointed out that Christmas was hot in Australia and that he was usually at Mass at midnight and slept in late Christmas morning. And they didn't celebrate Thanksgiving because Aussies didn't give a rat's ass about American history. Neither of them had any frame of reference for that.

He rolled over onto his side and sighed. He didn't like thinking about his family, so he continued thinking about his troublesome colleague. Foreman got along well with Cameron. She seemed to respond to his authority and natural presence. Foreman was a leader, Cameron was a follower. It worked well. But what was Chase? He certainly didn't want to be a leader all the time nor did he want to constantly be told what to do by others. Why were things so damn complicated?

Dealing with them was such a pain in the ass sometimes. Everything with Foreman was a fight, but everything with Cameron was a self effacing guilt trip. Sometimes he just wanted to get on a plane and leave. Go somewhere quiet and be a nameless doctor in the middle of the rain forest. But he never did it, at least not since he had gotten back from Africa. Someplace away from Foreman's scorn and Cameron's insecurity would be nice. How could they both be so different but so darned annoying?

When his father had been here, was the perfect example of how bad they both could be to deal with. Cameron had cornered him and tried to be all touchy feely with him. And when that failed she had simply told him how he should feel and then said he was a wrong for not feeling the same way. Then she had the nerve to get pouty when he told her to bugger off. She was usually like that about things, if you didn't agree with her you were not just wrong but a bloody, heartless monster.

Then there had been Foreman. Much like House and Cameron he had noticed the chill between the doctors Chase and was trying to puzzle it out. He had been his usual direct self about it. He had asked Chase what was up and Chase had ignored him. He had asked again and Chase dodged the question. When he had asked a third time, Chase had simply walked away while Foreman had still been talking. After that Foreman had finally given up.

That had been a wretched time for him. After his father had left House had come over and picked at him and picked at him until he cracked. House had been like a sculptor trying to chisel the perfect features, only to find that a fault ran just below the surface. When he had applied too much pressure the stone completely crumbled. Words had been exchanged, mean things were said, accusations were made, and at the end Chase had embarrassingly ended up in tears.

For the next few weeks he had been blisteringly mad at House. How dare that man presume to think that Chase's personal life was his business? How dare any of them think that he needed them? He had pushed them all away, one way or another. However, the sad part was that he wanted nothing more than to have someone to talk to. He had called the closest thing he had to a best friend, she hadn't answered. He hadn't expected her to.

Then he had gone out and found a woman. He didn't volunteer his name and she didn't ask. She was married, he had seen the ring in her purse, and he was broken. Neither wanted commitment just affection. It made him feel better, for a little while, just to have the warmth of another person near him even if it is only for physical pleasure. It made the icy lump that lived in side of him warm for a bit. Sometimes the lump would shrink, like when he was at work and too busy to think about it or when he was with someone he cared about. But sometimes it would get so big and so cold he felt like it crushed the air out of his lungs, choking him with its weight. He felt that way after his father said he couldn't stay for drinks. He didn't know why. He was an adult, it shouldn't bother him but it did. He had gone back to his car and spent twenty minutes trying not to cry. But the lump he could live with, it was the dragon he was afraid of.

There had been other women too. All nameless, faceless woman who didn't care any more for him then he did for them. He just wanted the touch and the warmth. Bless him father, for he had sinned, but he didn't care because it made him feel better and some times better was all you can hope for. Why wasn't there a Commandment saying that mothers and fathers had to honor thy children?

Chase rolled over onto his back again and tried to relax his jaw to arrest his progressing headache and his train of thought. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his pills. He dry swallowed one like House always did. These were his pain killers, no less needed than House's but much more socially acceptable. It was an anti-depressant. House took pills to quiet a pain in his leg that never went away and Chase took pills to stop a pain in his soul that never went away. Maybe that was why he was more accepting of House's drug addiction than the others. Or maybe he was just so used to being around addicts that House just didn't even register half the time.

No one knew he took them accept Cuddy and Wilson. He guessed maybe House knew, but thus far House hadn't used it against him so maybe he didn't. He had started taking them 8 years ago after he tried to kill himself. He had been 18 years old, top in his med school class, starting to grow into his looks, and rich. But nothing ever got rid of the crushing blue, black despair in side him. It was like a dragon, eating away his soul. He tried to run from it but it always found him.

He remembered it was a Friday. He had been trying to call his father for two weeks to ask if he could come visit him for a few weeks during their break. But his father hadn't returned any of his calls. Not that he should be surprised. Rowan hadn't talked to him in nearly two years, not since he had sobbingly told him about the circumstances surrounding his mother's death. The day after he and his father had talked about it, Rowan had arranged for Robert to return to Sydney and go back to school. His father still hadn't forgiven him for not doing a better job of taking care of his mother.

He had given up at 4:30 and driven down to his mother's beach house on Bondi. It was the off season so there weren't too many tourists around. He had then proceeded to take an entire bottle of Demeral and several shots of scotch. He should have died, he really should have, but the housekeeper had been late coming to water the plants and found him. She had called an ambulance and the ER team had saved him, barely.

He had woken up alone in a hospital bed and his first thought was that he couldn't even kill himself right. The staff had sent in several people to talk to him but he had turned them all away. He refused to even give a next of kin. But they had figured it out and the next day his father had shown up. Not a word had been spoken as he walked Robert out of the hospital to the car. He had still been dizzy and felt like he had eaten batteries. He had gone in the back seat so he could lie down and curl around his stomach and the whole drive back to Melbourne his father hadn't spoken to him.

He dozed in and out during the trip, only registering that it had started to rain and he was cold. He had almost asked if he could have his father's discarded trench coat, which occupied the front seat. But the hard look in Rowan's eyes made him hold his tongue so he curled into a tighter ball and tried to stop shaking.

When they had reached Rowan's house, the house Robert had grown up in, his father had taken him by the arm and guided him into the study. He had almost bodily shoved him into an over stuffed leather couch. The room smelled of tobacco and wood oil. This house was all old with wood paneling and soft warm colors, not like his mother's, no his house, in Sydney. That house was all concrete and cold angles. But the warmth was doing nothing to stop him from shivering. He couldn't look up to make eye contact with his father. He didn't want to see the disappointment and anger so he closed his eyes.

Then his father began to yell at him, which itself was an oddity. Rowan never yelled at Robert, because that would have meant that he paid attention to him or cared enough about him to yell. Rowan used to yell at his wife, but not his son. His son wasn't important enough for strong emotions. The rant was long, consisting mostly of how selfish he was, what an ingrate, what would the medical community think of him, what was wrong with him, what was he thinking, did he just want attention, and so on. He closed his eyes and tried to stop tears from falling past his long lashes. It didn't work.

Then there had been the slap, hard and fast on his left cheek. He had looked up then. His father had never hit him before. He was too stunned to do anything as he looked up into his father's angry face. His father had asked one question, why? Robert tried to verbalize the feeling of having a gnashing dragon of depression eating away at his heart and soul every day. How it felt to wake up in an empty house and eat alone every day. How the reminders of his mother all over the house made him want to weep every time he saw them. How he couldn't help wondering all day, every day, almost to the exclusion of all else, that maybe he shouldn't have let them cut off his mother's life support, that maybe he really had been a murder.

Rowan had listened to what he could understand, but by the end of the conversation, Robert was crying so hard he wasn't making sense. Rowan didn't hold him or tell him it was alright. He watched him like a specimen in Petrie dish. By the end Robert was draped over the arm of the couch with his face buried in his arms sobbing. All he could repeat was how sorry he was. Rowan had given into one brief fatherly instinct and smoothed back his son's hair, but then he left. He turned and walked out; uncomfortable with the raw emotion he was seeing. It was just another one of the many times he had failed his son. That was the one thing Cameron could never understand. That hitting wasn't the only way to hurt someone.

When Robert had woken up again, it was dark and he hadn't even realized he had fallen asleep. He was still tired and felt sick to his stomach. He pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged them, wondering what to do next. Then Rowan had cleared his throat and he had nearly jumped out of his skin. His father had given him a bottle of pills and instructed him to take one, twice a day for the next three months. They had been an older generation anti-depressant and they had had some annoying side effects like anxiety, jitters, and insomnia but they helped.

He had been on different types and different dosages of anti-depressants off and on ever since then. Sometimes he quit taking them and he would be ok for a while, the dragon would sleep, but it never died. It would always wake back up and start to tear him to pieces. But now he knew what it felt like and he knew to get a script before things ever got as bad as they had been. Whenever he passed a bridge and thought about how nice it would be to throw himself off of it, he went and found a doctor.

Though the pills didn't make him normal, they did make him feel normal. Like he could smile without cracking and laugh without betraying anything. They didn't get rid of the pain, they just dulled it to a manageable level. He needed them if he were going to function at his best. Was he really any different than House?

He didn't know, he really didn't want to think about that so he switched back to thinking about Foreman. What to do about Foreman? He could ignore the situation, his personal favourite way to deal with things. He could quit and go find work somewhere else. He knew he could, intensivists were in very high demand all over the world, especially ones with his training and skill. He could go confront Foreman. Yeah right, like that was ever going to happen. He could go and talk to House. Once House saw the record he would probably even take Chase's side. Foreman had been talked to before about stepping on other doctor's toes.

When Gabe had developed breathing difficulties and intubations hadn't worked, Chase had made the call to trach him. Foreman had refused. Cuddy had made the same call, Foreman had refused. In the end, Foreman had managed to get the tube in, but that wasn't the point. They were in the ICU and Chase was the primary attending. Foreman should have backed off when he made the call. Chase hadn't complained to House, but Cuddy sure had. Foreman had been so hell bent on proving that he could do it that he had disregarded what was best for the patient, the fact that he had succeeded really didn't mitigate the circumstances.

Cameron, Chase, and Rowan had all heard House ream Foreman about his misstep. Some was for Cuddy's benefit but some was to just plain teach the Foreman's arrogant ass a lesson. Chase only wished he hadn't been so distracted so he could have paid better attention. Foreman had been somewhat sheepish afterwards and had apologized to Cuddy but not to Chase. Oh well, hell hadn't frozen over yet so he wasn't surprised.

His stomach growled and he finally got up and rummaged around the lounge. All there was to eat were granola bars, which he gladly did. They were the crunchy kind and made his jaw hurt but oh well. When he was finished he made his rounds of the ward and noted everyone was doing well. Their patient's parents and younger brother were all sound asleep around the bed.

He quietly approached the bed and checked the patient's vitals. He shined his pen light in the kid's eyes and noticed neither pupil responded, not good, fixed but not dilated. He noted it on the chart along with the time. He uncovered the boy's feet and ran the back of his metal pen the length of the soul. There was no response, again, not good. Chase ordered another 10 mils of Atropine. On his way out the boy's younger brother, Joey looked up at him with wide brown eyes. He smiled and tried to duck out, but the boy grabbed his lab coat and tugged on it. Chase reluctantly bent down.

The little boy motioned for him to lean in and whispered. "I have to go potty."

Chased looked over at the parents and noted their exhaustion and that at least the mother was clearly in REM sleep. "I'll get one of the nurses to take you."

"No, they can't go in the boy's room." Chase sighed and motioned for the little boy to follow him. Just because he was good with kids didn't mean he liked them. In fact really didn't.

They reached the boys room, and Chase helped the 4 year old out of his overalls. Why did parents put young children with questionable bladder control in overalls? He had always wondered. When the little boy was done he helped him wash his hands and was prepared to return him to his parents when Joey asked him a question. "You are the one who gave Tommy the little bear, right?" The boy made a motion with his fingers like they were the teeth of a crocodile.

"Yes, that was me." Chase produced the clippie kola bear out of his lab coat pocket. He kept it and a panda on his lapel and stethoscope for when he had to deal with children. He held it out to the boy to play with. He had about 20 of them so he didn't care what happened to this one.

"Did you do something bad? Was that why the other man was yelling at you?" The boy asked as he pet the stuffed kola shaped clip.

"Call it a difference of medical opinion, why?"

"Mommy and daddy yell at us when we do something bad."

"Do they yell a lot?" Chase crouched down to be on Joey's level.

"No, but it is bad when they do. Tommy doesn't like it."

"No one likes it but sometimes parents do it because what you did could hurt you."

"I don't want them to yell at Tommy." The little boy's eyes filled with tears.

"Why would they? Did he do something wrong? Maybe go somewhere you weren't supposed to be?"

"It was my fault, I dared him."

"Dared him to do what? I promise I won't tell your parents." Chase crossed his heart.

"We aren't supposed to go in the shed behind the apartment, but it was raining and we like to play in there. I dared him and he went in there. He even ate his lunch in there." Bells started going off in Chase's brain at this new information.

"Did you have lunch in there?"

"No, I went in side and watched TV. You aren't going to tell Mommy and Daddy are you?"

"No, I won't tell your Mum and Dad."

"She isn't mum, she's mommy." Joey corrected.

"Sorry. Where I come from it's mum."

"That's silly." The little boy pointed out. Chase smiled and led him back to his parents. Joey quickly fell back asleep but now Chase had something else to think about other than Foreman.

TBC


	3. House gets involved

A/N: I just wanted to thank everyone for all of their great reviews. It is nice to know that some people like reading stories that don't center around House and Cameron being angsty together.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these people nor would I really want to.

**Conflict 3**

At 4:30 am Foreman got back in his car and drove to the hospital. He had to talk to Chase. He had to apologize. He felt like the worst kind of heel for treating his co worker that way. But worse he treated someone who could almost be counted a friend, if he were honest with himself, that way.

He had spent all night on his computer researching Chase and his family. It was actually surprisingly easy to find out information about them. He had no idea what big wigs they were Down Under. He had learned that Chase had won a national spelling bee when he was nine, which Foreman just found funny because he and Cameron were always yelling at Chase about the way he spelled thing. There is no "u" in color, damn it. It looked like Chase also used to swim and play soccer for some Catholic school or other. He had also won their national science contest three years in a row. Shows how much more you can achieve with money and better schools.

Wilson had also been right and Chase's mom had been a babe, at least for a skinny, white chick. Foreman was more of a mind that a woman should have curves and a little bit of padding. Chase's mother had looked like an anorexic scarecrow to him but he guessed most men would find her attractive. He also guessed she must have been where Chase gained his attraction for skinny, little, crack whore looking women. Every women he had ever seen Chase with looked like a scrawny model type to him. All he could think about was that the two of them having sex must sound like a game of craps from all the bones banging together. But then again, he had the same image when he thought about Cam and House. Yuck!

Regardless of Chase's odd fixation on skeletal women, his mother had been very attractive and there was a very strong family resemblance between them. However, he thought he had only seen two or three pictures out of hundreds, where she didn't have a drink in her hand. She also often had the look of someone who was just plain loaded. Foreman had grown up in a pretty rough neighbourhood, he knew that look.

There were tons of publicity photos of her at art opening and the like. Her work was sort of strange and cold, like Chase oddly enough, aesthetically pleasing but wholly uninviting. There were a few older photos of here with Dr. Chase sr. they were a good looking couple. He saw a lot of Rowan in Robert too, the eyes and the mouth mostly. But most of the photos she had been with different men every time and a few times with a very young looking Robert. Surprisingly, he had looked ungodly uncomfortable in front of the camera. In all but one of the pictures of him he looked like he had been purposely turning his head away from the photographer.

There had also been an article in an art magazine where she talked about being married and being a mother. She had said she didn't really like either. She had actually said that having children had ruined her life. That was a nice thing for a kid to hear. He guessed maybe that explained why Chase tended to be so thick skinned.

Then there were the numerous articles, thousands actually, that talked about the trial. Most of them were written by three or four reporters, he noticed. They had pictures of Robert walking and sitting on a deck in a big, industrial looking white house that overlooked the water. Pictures of him jogging with a really big dog and pictures of him with his head resting beside his mother's, sleeping in a chair next her hospital bed. There had even been a picture of him taken where Chase had been kneeling in front of an alter in a church, which just seemed strange considering how Chase avoided all talk of religion to the point where he looked physically pained to talk about it.

The articles about the trial were cruel and ugly. They dragged a 16 year old Robert's name through the mud, saying he was a murderer. Then the other side saying he was a visionary and advocate for right to die groups. Foreman guessed that the truth was somewhere in the middle. Foreman was very interested to know what the truth was. On such issues, like every issue other than weight, Chase had offered no personal opinion. But there were some awful visuals he couldn't forget. One of the beautiful woman Abbagaile Pronásledovat had been beside a bedridden hag that she was after her bleed. But the worst was a picture of Chase, walking down court house steps surrounding by crowds with signs that called him a murderer and a killer. It was just plain cold to do that to anyone, much less a 16 year old kid.

Then there was the question of where his father was during all this? He never saw mention of Rowan in relation to his wife after 1994. He could understand that they had a nasty break up, but why hadn't Rowan gone to help his son? Foreman couldn't imagine going through anything like that without his family there to support him. Wilson had mentioned that Rowan hadn't had much contact with Robert during that time but damn, how mean was it that Rowan didn't do anything? Maybe that was why Chase was so bitter towards his dad, because he had left his teenage son alone to deal with his mother dying of liver cancer and the aftermath of her death. That might have made Foreman pretty bitter too. But bitter was one thing, the question was, why didn't Chase hate his father?

Rowan and Robert's relationship was strange to Foreman. He loved his Dad like there was no tomorrow. The elder Mr. Foreman may not be a well educated man or a powerful one, but he provided for his family, was fair and always proud of all his children. But the Chases were just weird. They both tried to seem like neither of them really give a rip about the other. Robert had been annoyed and snippy but not blindingly angry, well maybe pretty angry for a guy who never runs more than lukewarm. Rowan had been amused and interested in his son but not particularly solicitous. Rowan had taken them out to dinner but hadn't seemed put out that Robert didn't attend. They both treated each other with a creepy polite indifference that was just not right for close family

Oh, he had well realized there was tension there though. Someone who didn't know what Chase was normally like might have missed it but to his colleagues, he was an emotional mess. Foreman well remembered a strange streak of compassion he had felt for Chase when they had walked out of the conference room after deciding to put the kid on meds for two different diseases. Chase had seemed so calm, tough, professional, and together while he was talking to House and his father. However, as soon as they had left the room, Chase deflated like a balloon and became quiet, sullen, brooding, and moody. It was like the difference between night and day. Foreman had found it odd that House would have sent him to watch out for his favoured duckling but after he saw Chase standing in the hall looking like he was about to start crying or throw up or something, he understood. He had put his hand on Chase's shoulder and asked if he was alright. It was a simple gesture of compassion. He would have done it for anyone. Chase had shaken out of his grip and snapped that he had a headache and stormed off. Foreman had wondered if the headache had been named House or Rowan.

If the Chases, or Pronásledovats he would have to remember to ask about that, had just been normal people they would have yelled at each other. But they didn't. Rowan had just hung around like he was waiting for Robert to make the first move. He had commented on Foreman's and Cameron's intellect and abilities with great awe and kindness, to his son he had said nothing. Foreman would have figured from the way Chase toadied to House, that he would have been following his father around trying to show the elder man how smart he was, but Chase had just seemed to spar with him like he was a normal colleague. However, if Foreman thought about it there had been a strange sense that Chase was trying to show his father how good he was and that he didn't need Rowan but at the same time he was silently begging for Rowan to compliment him. It was just plan screwed up.

Foreman expertly steered his car into his space and gathered his things. Hopefully Chase was still at the hospital. He looked around for his fellow duckling's car but didn't see it. That didn't mean much though. Chase rarely drove unless the weather was abysmal. He tended to walk or bike instead.

As he entered the building and said his quiet hellos to the night staff he thought about what he was going to say to Chase. After he had found out about Cameron's husband, he had gained a new respect for her. The fact that she had lost someone so close to her but still went on to finish med school and become successful was very note worthy to him. One reason he hadn't liked Chase was because he had assumed that Chase had had everything handed to him and never had to work or sweat for anything. He always seemed so calm that Foreman figured that Chase had never had to deal with anything worse than a divorce in his life. Now he knew he was wrong and yet still wasn't sure how he felt about the Aussie. Ok, so now he knew that Chase had a really crumby childhood and young adult life, but did that excuse him from being an unlikable person? Foreman wasn't sure. He could forgive House his foibles because House was often in pain and when not in pain was usually high. He could forgive Cameron her emotion because she had been hurt before. But could he forgive Chase his problems?

Foreman walked up to the conference room and looked in. Chase was seated at the long table with files spread in front of him, working. His head was bowed and his blond hair hung further into his face than usual. Foreman cringed for a moment. Some times he just wanted to attack Chase with a pair of scissors and get rid of the hair that hung into his eyes. Foreman could not even imagine how annoying that must be. But he was also savvy enough to realize that it was a sort of armour for Chase. Anyone who ever saw Chase's car or his desk knew damn well that like most doctors, he was probably boarder line OCD. But he always dressed like a rumpled college kid and kept his hair in his face. Foreman was beginning to think that it was nothing more than a big, fat, "stay away, and stop looking at me" sign.

Chase didn't look up until Foreman opened the glass door. Then he jerked his head up in surprise, reflexively looking at his beeper where it sat beside his stack of files. When he realized who it was, his expression went from confused to guarded and wary.

The two stared at each other for a time without saying anything. Finally Chase broke the ice, loosing the initial phase of the game of chicken. Foreman felt emboldened by it. "What brings you here so late, or early I guess? I promise I didn't kill the patient."

"I know." Chase may have spoken first, but Foreman was the first to drop his eyes. Something in the way Chase was staring at him made him feel uncomfortable, like he was a specimen in a Petrie dish, to be watched and studied but not approached. That would make things harder. He walked over to get some coffee, but the pot was clean and empty. Of course Chase wouldn't have made coffee he preferred that horrible, tart, black tea from India. Foreman didn't care for it, he thought it tasted like hot battery acid. And why did you have to have a different type of tea for morning and afternoon, it just made no sense? So he busied himself making coffee, feeling Chase's gaze burn into his back. He took a deep breath. "I wanted to talk to you about yesterday." Chase didn't answer; he just continued to look at Foreman with his big eyes. He had dark bags under them from lack of sleep and they somehow made his eyes look green rather than blue.

Foreman sighed and paused. Chase clearly wasn't going to make this easy for him. "I wanted to say I was sorry for yelling at you." Chase still didn't say anything, just tilted his head to the side slightly. "You didn't screw up, I did. I left out the shellfish allergy from the history. I'll tell House and Cuddy later today." Chase continued to stare at him. "Well say something, damn it!"

"Why the sudden change of heart?" The Australian leaned back and ran his hand through his hair, unsuccessfully trying to push it out of his face.

"Because I was wrong. Can't a guy apologize for that?"

"You've been wrong before and never felt the need to drive up here in the wee hours of the morning to inform me of it."

"I thought you might like to know that you didn't screw up. I thought it might make you sleep better." Foreman was starting to get angry. It was not easy for him to admit he was wrong and Chase wasn't making it any easier. Why couldn't Chase just act like a bloody human being for once, rather than ass?

"I'm not Cameron, I don't need you to reassure me that I know how to read a chart. I know you left it off the history. And since you took off and left me here alone, you damn well knew I wasn't going to be getting any sleep, so try again."

Foreman tried not to squirm. Somehow Chase had just morphed into House, his mother, his father, his preacher, his 6th grade teacher, and everyone else who had ever caught him in a lie. "Look, I was out of line when I yelled at you and it was keeping me up so I wanted to apologize to you before this goes any further." Which in Foreman speak translated into "Please let's just drop this because I don't want to eat crow in front of anyone I respect."

"Fine, apology accepted." Chase then went back to work without another word. He may have let Foreman off the hook, but it was clear that Chase was still angry and planned to give his colleague the cold shoulder for a while longer. Foreman decided that breakfast at IHOP was in order so he left the room to Chase's icy attitude and headed for his car, somewhat embarrassed that he let Chase run him out.

He sat in his car for a moment and looked at the clock. It was 5 am, Cameron would be up by now. He dialed her number and invited her for pancakes and coffee at the IHOP by the hospital. He needed someone who wasn't in a position of authority over him to talk to. Plus it wouldn't hurt that Cameron wasn't Chase's biggest supporter either. However, he thought that had more to do with the fact that House was more personal and friendly to Chase than to her.

Inside, Chase leaned back and tried not to curse at the top of his lungs. Of all the pompous, arrogant, obnoxious things that someone could do, this had to top the list. Yes, he had gotten an apology, but it was so back handed and accusatory that it was meaningless. Not to mention there would be no repeating it in front of the staff or the family. So in Foreman's mind, no matter that Chase had lost face with his staff, and yes the ICU staff was more his than Foreman's, and that the patient's family thought he was incompetent. The important thing was that Foreman had gotten this off his chest so it didn't affect his beauty sleep. Bugger him!

Chase went back and checked in on the ICU patients then went for a shower. After he returned to lounge he put his head down and quickly dropped off for a quick cat nap before the day began. That was how House found him when he arrived at 5:30.

House had talked to Wilson last night and was more than a little worried about what he would find when he got in today. Would Chase have finally snapped and there would be a Foreman shaped stain on the floor? Or would Foreman have gone too far and Chase crumbled from the cruelty? Though Cameron was the traditionally more sensitive one, she was the most emotionally healthy. Cameron let her emotions out and told people what and how she felt. She was the emoter. Foreman on the other hand sublimated all his negative feelings into anger and a drive to succeed. He was the projector. Chase internalized everything, be it pain or joy. He would perfunctorily complain but he really didn't show much feeling one way or another about anything. Chase was the internalizer. The problem was that one day Foreman was going to snap and kill someone and Chase was going to snap and kill himself. House hoped they were both long gone by then.

He watched his intensivist sleep for a moment before walking through the door. Why was Chase special to him? Was it some misguided sense of responsibility because he had nearly driven Chase to a nervous breakdown? Was it an alarm from his biological clock that he wanted a son to carry on in his foot steps, if so he thought his son would be taller? Or was it because Chase was the first duckling he had had in 10 years that had made it longer than a month without quitting? No matter what he did to Chase, he couldn't completely drive him away. He was like some sort of weirdo abused dog that kept coming back for more. This intrigued House and he could never give up on a puzzle until it was done.

He also had to fully to himself admit that part of it was guilt, but never to Wilson. Ever since he had met Chase sr. he had seen the junior in a totally different light. House had wanted the two to make up. Though most would never believe it, House had romantic notions about father son relationships. He and his father had been extremely close. When his father had passed away 6 years ago he had been devastated. But then again, his father had been a concert pianist and a very warm and loving man. Rowan was one of the coldest people House had ever met.

The night Rowan was leaving for home, House had gotten good and drunk and headed to his hotel to have a word with him, this was just before he headed over to Robert's place to cause trouble there too. House tended to do stupid and mean things when he was drinking whiskey. He and Rowan had argued and House had a strange sense of cognitive dissidence. It was like arguing with Robert if you got him mad enough. All calm politeness with an undercurrent of shear vindictive spite. After his chat with Rowan, he had decided that Robert needed a friend more than a medical teacher. Not that he was volunteering for the position, but he realized that a great deal of Chase's strange behaviour could be blamed on growing up around people that he could never, ever please.

House quietly put down his bag and removed two bagels from it. One had cream cheese and the other had peanut butter. There were also two small plastic containers of jelly. He cleared his throat to wake up his sleeping ducking. When that didn't work he gave up and smacked his cane against the table, which made Chase jump half way out of the chair.

"Morning, sweet cheeks, I brought you breakfast." He tossed the bagel with peanut butter on it towards Chase. The Aussie missed it and it bounced off is forehead before landing on the table. Chase dumbly stared down at it, still clearly not completely awake. "Sorry, no vegemite."

House watched as Chase seemed to give himself a mental shake and responded. "Thank you." He then stood up and staggered over to the coffee maker. House had an internal chuckle at Chase's early morning lack of motor skills as he watched him fumble through putting on a pot with nothing but water, but after noticing House's pointed look, also added a new pot of coffee to replace the one Foreman had made.

"Rough night?" House questioned.

"Not really, just long."

"How is the patient?" House looked at the table and noticed several drawing of a balloon kola and a balloon panda. He recognized them as Kammi the Kola and Pie Min the Panda. Chase often drew little colouring books with these characters for their very young patients.

"Stable but not good. I talked to the younger brother. I think he might have ingested a heavy metal? I sent blood work to lab and the initials came back positive but the definitive test takes a few days."

House nodded, the symptoms fit. "How did you wrangle a blood test in the middle of the night?"

"Kim was the tech on duty." Chase mentioned. It was a well known and well made fun of fact, that Kim had a huge crush on Chase and would do anything he asked. He didn't abuse it because frankly it got on his nerves but he decided that it might do some good this time. He wanted to be respected for his medical ability not his looks. In a way he had it rougher than Cameron because it was sexual harassment for the men to ogle, hit on, touch, or otherwise bother her but it was perfectly alright for the women to do it to Chase. Foreman seemed to get off on it, when it happened to him. It just annoyed Chase. He didn't like people staring at him.

"What did you have to promise her, one night of toe curling sex?"

"Actually I brought her a pack of M&Ms and told her I needed it done quickly." Chase wouldn't meet House's eyes but when he did there was a question in them. "Ok, and I told her I'd take her out to lunch next week."

"Let me guess, no lab coat either, had to shake that little British ass of yours?"

"Australian." Chase automatically corrected as he sat back down and started to unwrap his bagel. "Ugh peanut butter. You know I hate peanut butter." Chase moaned. He noticed that House had cream cheese on his and knew damn well that House was just doing this to screw with him. House didn't like cream cheese on his bagels. He played along because the familiarity of it cheered it up.

House pulled the cream cheese bagel out of his intensivist's reach and commented. "You will eat the sludge left over after making beer, but you won't eat mashed peanuts? Your priorities are way off, boy."

"Vegemite is good and good for you, lots of iron, and b vitamins. Peanut butter is like eating the remains of a vicious peanut murder." He reached a bit further and managed to snag the other bagel. House allowed him to take it. He just couldn't understand why Chase would eat peanuts and peanut butter if it were in candy, but he wouldn't touch it straight. House rescued his own peanut butter bagel and applied jelly. It was a comfort food and very tasty. "So why are you here so early? I doubt it is because you care so much about the patient that you couldn't sleep."

"Wilson called me. He mentioned that my resident neurologist and my resident neurotic got into a fight yesterday."

"I didn't know Cameron and Foreman were fighting."

"Give yourself some credit, Chase, for once you are the best at something. She may be more sensitive but you are way more neurotic." Chase didn't argue, he was neurotic sometimes. "So what happened?"

"Is there anything Wilson doesn't tell you?"

"Not quite everything, but almost everything. He said there was a big to do in the middle of hall. Insults were exchanged." He critically looked at his duckling, "you ran off with your tail between your legs."

"So what more can I tell you?" Chase sullenly asked.

"Whatever Wilson left out."

"Why does he care anyway?"

"Because he is an administrator at the hospital, because fighting makes everyone look bad, because he knew I would enjoy the story. Take your pick."

"Those are your reasons."

"I'm not an administrator. I'm just a lowly department head."

"Fine, the other reasons are yours.

"Ok, Wilson is a disgustingly nice guy and likes everyone to get along. And besides, it is easier to stop every single person in this hospital from fighting than for him and his bunt cake of a wife to be civil for one night."

"Bunt cake?" Chase giggled.

"Use your imagination. It's that thing other than your right hand that kept you company in Seminary. But I digress. So what happened with you and Foreman? What was the fight about? I can't have my team at each other's throats when I'm not here to enjoy it." House rose and went to get some coffee. He also fixed a cup of tea for Chase, one sugar and just a touch of milk. It wasn't that he didn't care about his team, he just didn't like showing it. But he did show it in different ways. For Cameron he would do something nice to show that he was human after all. It fed her stalker fantasies. House's greatest gift to Foreman was to leave him alone. On the other hand he left Chase alone if he wanted to punish him. To be nice, he picked on him. Chase reveled in slightly derisive attention. If he was being annoyed then he didn't feel ignored and he would be happy. Sad really, but what did House care. The Aussie and all his ducklings were like a little finger trap that he had gotten sucked into and hadn't figured his way out of yet.

Chase accepted the tea with a mumbled "thank you." All of the comfort had suddenly fled the situation and now he was tense and unhappy.

House stared at the top of his duckling's head. Chase was intently looking into his cup of tea as if the answers to some of life's greatest problems were contained in its depths. He noted that Chase looked very tired and more than slightly stressed out. It was the perfect time to get information from the Aussie. If Chase were in full control of his faculties he was notoriously hard to get an answer out of. House also noted the way that the younger doctor kept childishly playing with the plastic end of his fleecy pull over rather than eating his breakfast. He tried another route to get at the information. Being direct worked with Foreman but manipulation worked better with Chase.

"You look pretty wiped out, why didn't you go sleep in my office?" Just after Chase had started working at PPTH, House had given him a key to his office so that the younger doctor could use his couch to sleep on when he was stuck on over night shifts. This was before the ICU lounge got its two cots and before the other ducklings arrived. He had never repeated the gesture with Cameron and Foreman. He wasn't sure why. But Chase was always careful not to rub this fact in the other duckling's faces so he never slept in there if they were around.

"Foreman came by about an hour ago." Chase finally worked up the nerve to take a bite of his bagel. His stomach always had the unfortunate habit of tying itself into knots whenever he got upset about something.

"He still around?"

"I don't know, did you see his car?"

Actually House hadn't seen it so he guessed Foreman had gone home. "Did Cameron stay over night too? Was it like a slumber party? Did you and her have a pillow fight in your unmentionables?"

"No, Foreman didn't stay either."

"Well thanks for ruining my fantasy. So you stayed two nights and neither of them stayed with you?" House was slightly annoyed. No one doctor was supposed to be on call for over 36 hours without at least 12 hours off. Doctors made mistakes when they got too tired. Plus that was just kind of a crumby thing to do to a colleague, even by House's standards.

"Nope."

"Why not?" Maybe they were trying to punish Chase too over Vogler. If so, House would put a stop to it. No one mistreated his ducklings but him, not even each other.

"Cameron has a cold and can't go in the ICU. I guess Foreman didn't feel he was needed."

"We'll see how much longer he is needed." House quietly commented. Foreman was a great doctor, one of the best he had ever worked with. But personally he was just a pompous ass and House didn't like having to deal with him. He was too old and too confident to really be much fun. It was easy to make him mad but beyond that he was too calm and collected. He didn't have Cameron's insecurities or Chase's whacked out fear responses. And to be fair, House didn't really care for other people that acted like him.

"It's no big deal. If they are in the ICU I should be the one to stay anyway."

"True enough. So why did tall, dark, and surly come in at 4:30?" House watched as Chase pulled his bagel into smaller and smaller pieces without eating it. Damn it, that thing at cost $3, he had better eat it.

"He wanted to apologize."

"Apologize? Foreman? Did you get it on video?" House acted stunned and bugged his eyes out for comedy's sake.

"No, it wasn't like it was you or something." Chase answered as he finally ate a second bite.

"So what did he say?"

"Just that he was sorry that he yelled at me and wanted to know if we could move on?"

"What did you tell him? Please told me you made him grovel?"

"No, I said fine."

House deflated slightly. "How could you just forgive him? I would pay good money to see him grovel."

"He didn't grovel. He apologized then left, end of story."

"And you forgave him?"

"I said I did."

"But if I know my grudge carrying little puppy, you didn't mean it one bit. You are going to be nasty to him for the next 6 months."

"Probably not that long. I'm sure you or Cameron will do something to divert my attention by then. And why do you only ever call me 'your puppy?'" Chase off handedly questioned as he finished the first half of his bagel.

"Because the others don't leave slobber covered chew toys lying around my office." House answered as he flicked a pen marred with teeth marks towards Chase. "So what was the fight actually about?"

Chase sighed and answered. "We were going to do a contrast to determine the cause of the edema in his hands. It turned out he was allergic to shellfish and went into shock just after we injected. Luckily we still had him in the ICU when we gave it to him. Foreman kept stepping on my toes while we were working and then he accused me of not reading the chart before I ordered the test." Chase paused here.

"I'm assuming there is more to this story if Foreman apologized?"

"Yeah, but I don't want Foreman to get in any kind of serious trouble over it. It was really just a mistake."

"Duly noted. But what else?"

"Foreman forgot to put the allergy on the chart. He took the history and knew the kid was allergic but didn't write it down."

"But he just assumed you screwed up because he is infallible?" House commented.

"Yup. He reamed me in front of the family and my staff."

"What an ass. What do you want me to do?" House sipped at his coffee. Chase pushed the rest of his bagel away and pillowed his head on his arm, staring tiredly at the patterns on House's shirt. He obviously didn't have any hair gel after he had washed his hair because most of it was falling into his face. One damp lock was stuck on his nose and wiggled every time he blinked. House had an insane paternal urge to smooth the hair out of Chase's face. The feeling made him decidedly uncomfortable. "Never mind I know what I will do to him. But what to do about you?" He fell back on humour and sarcasm to try and push the protective feelings away.

"What do you mean?"

"You should be punished too. Maybe I should have Cameron dress up like a nun and come in to spank you." He smiled at the fantasy.

"I think you just nearly made me throw up."

"Ok, Foreman dressed up like a nun?"

"That is just disturbing. How about Cuddy in a leather bustier and thigh high boots? Hand cuffs and riding crop are optional?"

"Ok, no I am nauseous. This is supposed to be punishment for you, not a fantasy date, weirdo." Chase just closed his eyes tiredly rather than responding. House reached into the pocket of Chase's lab coat, which was sitting on the table, and pulled out his clippie animals. He took a coffee stirrer and broke it in half, putting a half in each animal's clips. He then bent sugar packets to make shields and proceeded to have a clippie animal fight. "You know, your obsession with kolas is not healthy."

"Neither is the fact that a 40 something year old man is playing with children's toys." Chase finally opened his eyes again and watched the battle orchestrated by House play out on the conference table.

"I am in touch with my inner child. I think these things have warped you."

"Why?"

"Because in your drawings you always make the kola and the panda the same size. I blame it on these clips, they have distorted your percetptions into thinking that these two creatures are the same size." House had the kola down on its back, nearly defeated.

"It's a cartoon. It doesn't have to be realistic."

"You are going to convince kids that pandas and kolas are great friends when in fact, they are mortal enemies." House had the kola strike a fatal blow to the panda.

"They don't even live on the same continent. And besides, the kola would fall asleep half way through the fight. They sleep 20 something hours a day."

"Lucky bastards."

"And if you want realism the panda would have won."

"Yeah, yeah, but I don't like pandas"

"How can you not like pandas? They are the cutest things in the entire world."

"Because I got food poisoning from a place that had a panda on the logo once." Chase didn't have a snappy come back for that but instead kept his fatigue glazed eyes fixed on the defeated symbol of China. House was going to have to send Chase home soon, he must be totally exhausted to be too tired to be sarcastic. He looked at the clock and noticed it was nearly 6 am. The others would be in just before 7. "Go check on the kid again then come back and take a nap. You're useless to me if you are too tired to play with."

Chase mumbled something to House, more than half asleep again, but eventually pushed himself up and went to go do his final rounds in the ICU before the shift change. House contemplated what to do.

Not two miles away, Foreman and Cameron sat talking over a few short stacks and some coffee. Foreman tucked into his. But what disturbed him was that Cameron was easily keeping pace with him. Cameron was very conscious about her eating habits and exercise but she had a real weakness for pancakes and boysenberry syrup. Foreman on the other hand ate because he was upset. Food was comforting to him because that was one of the many ways his family expressed love.

After Cameron had polished off two pancakes and a cup of coffee, she finally slowed down enough to question Foreman. "So, what happened that was so important that you had to wake me up while I am deathly ill?" She smiled. Yes, she had a cold, but she also had a spa treatment scheduled for later today and planned to tell House she needed to go home sick.

"Chase." Foreman breathed the one word like a curse.

"What did he do now?" She assumed that Chase had done something to annoy Foreman. It wasn't that she didn't like Chase, she respected his medical ability and found him to be very attractive physically. But his emotional distance really bothered her. With House she assumed it was hiding a vulnerable heart but she just got the impression that Chase was a rich, stuck up brat with horrible fashion sense.

"Nothing. In fact he didn't do anything before either. I was the one who messed up with the kid."

"He knows that. I talked to him before I left. He was his usual snippy self." She slurped down some bacon.

Foreman paused for a moment, he wasn't sure how much he wanted to tell Cameron. He wasn't sure he trusted her not to run to Chase and repeat whatever he told her because she was trying to heal him. But he also needed her opinion on how to proceed. After all, she had known him much longer than Foreman had and was better at dealing with people on a personal basis than he was. He took a deep breath and decided to play it by ear. "Wilson saw us fighting. He cornered me just after you left."

"Did you tell you to be good and stop picking on people smaller than you?" Wilson, being a skinny, geeky, little underdog type, tended to stick up for others of his kind.

"Not exactly. He gave me Chase's personnel file and then told me some stuff about him."

"Like what?"

Before long, Foreman had outlined almost everything he had found out about Chase. Everything with the exception of Rowan's illness, that he kept private. If Chase didn't know, then it really wouldn't be fair to let Cameron know either. "So I found all this stuff out and went to talk to him and I choked. I'm not sure any of it changes the way I feel about him."

"How could it not? I mean it explains so much. How could he have never told us before?" Cameron was off with the bit in her teeth. She had found a new pet project.

"Maybe because this is Chase we are talking about. The man who thinks 'good morning, how are you?' is too personally intrusive of a question."

"I know, but to think that he went through all that and still became a doctor? It breaks your heart."

"Not really. And remember he doesn't know that I know any of this. I'm not sure what to do about it?" Foreman was uncomfortable with the idea of asking help of anyone. Give him a medical conundrum over a personal issue any day.

"I think you need to talk to him about it. Maybe we should tell House, I'm sure he will know what to do." Leave it to Cameron to find some way to work him into the conversation.

"I don't think Chase would want House knowing nor do I think House has the people skills to deal with something like this."

"You would be surprised how gentle and caring he can sometimes be."

"Yes, I'm sure he can, but we are talking about Chase not House." Foreman tried to steer the conversation away from Cameron's crush.

"I guess you need to take the clues from him. You said that he forgave you so maybe he did and you guys can move on and become better friends now that you know more about each other."

"He said he forgave me, but he was so freaking cold about it. I'm not sure he meant it. But I guess I don't really have any other choice but to let him set the pace. I don't want to blind side him with this. Knowing him he would wait a week then cut the break cables in my car."

"Or quit and move to Switzerland without telling anyone." She joked.

They continued their meal in friendly banter then made their way to the hospital. When they arrived they found House already relaxed and watching morning cartoons. Chase was passed out asleep in the beginnings of a sunbeam leaking through the open shades, throwing light and dark stripes across him. Cameron hid a smile. Some times the Australian reminded her of a huge orange tabby cat she used to have because he would always find the warmest and most comfortable sunbeam to curl up and sleep in. Early on she and Foreman had started to refer to this habit as Chase photosynthesizing. He was the first and only person she had ever met who seemed to suffer from Season Affective Disorder in New Jersey. But then again New Jersey probably seemed pretty cold and dreary after Sydney.

They all sat quietly for a few minutes until House's episode of Tom and Jerry was over, then he turned to them. "Well kiddies, it looks like I might have figured out what is bothering the wee person in ICU." House smile triumphantly, waiting for the protest from Chase that he had in fact figured it out. When he heard nothing he turned and noticed his blonde duckling was still fast asleep. He really was going to have to send him home soon.

Cameron smiled as she watched House make a peeved face at Chase. House really was a lovely looking man to her. Then she no longer was able to hide her laughter when House used his cane to hook Chase's ankle, which was propped up on the table, and pulled. Though the Aussie had the balance of a cat while asleep, the sudden movement threw him off balance and he pitched forward onto the floor at House's feet. House looked down at Chase's surprised eyes and realized that that dark smudges under them hadn't receded at all. "While you're done there, you might as well make yourself useful since you don't seem interested in helping the patient." House then propped his good leg up on Chase, using him as a foot rest.

Chase threw the leg off of him and got back into his chair with a mumbled, "Bugger off, House." He hated when House did nasty things to wake him up. He never did them to the other ducklings. House took great delight in finding unpleasant ways to wake up his sleeping duckling from smacking him in the back of head, to setting off his beeper. Once he had dumped hot, but not scalding, pot of coffee on Chase's head. The best part about that had been that it had been in late summer so Chase's hair had been bleached an even paler shade of blonde than usual and the coffee had stained it a streaky brown for weeks

Chase, unlike Foreman or Cameron, had regular rotations in the ICU. After the whole Vogler mess, House decided to punish Chase by "volunteering" him to Cuddy to work a few shifts in the ICU. Cuddy had gladly taken him up on the offer and had immediately set Chase 5 12 shifts per week. Of course House hadn't lowered the amount of time he expected his intensivist to work either. So for three weeks Chase worked four 20 hour days, an eight hour day and a 12 hour night. But of course House often required him to be there beyond the normal 8 hour work day. Long story short, after three weeks, Chase turned into the walking dead or closer to the truth the surly, staggering, crashing in to walls, dropping things, narcoleptic dead. The first week Foreman had found it funny, the second he had felt sorry for him, the third, he was just plain worried. There were memorably amusing moments, like when Chase had been so tired he walked into the glass door not once, not twice but three times in the same morning. Then there was also the time that he face planted into the table hard enough to split his forehead open. Good times.

Long story short, by the end of the third week, Chase had been so exhausted he couldn't sign his own name much less practice medicine. House had told Cuddy to take him off rotation, figuring that he had suffered enough. Cuddy said no, ICU needed him. House pointed out that Chase worked for him. Then Cuddy said fine, not anymore she would officially transfer him to ICU since House didn't seem to like him anymore. House then got spiteful and Cuddy and angry. Eventually Wilson worked out a compromise that Chase would still work for and report to House but would do three sifts a week in ICU.

"As I was saying, I found the cause of the patient's symptoms so it is up to you people to verify." He looked pointedly at Chase.

"You found?" Chase intoned quizzically.

"I am the head of the department. Heavy metal folks." He launched into a dissertation of the effects of heavy metals on the human body.

"But that doesn't explain the edema in the hands." Foreman pointed out. "It would be more even, not so much more pronounced on the right side."

"True, come on people, what could cause this." Foreman and Cameron threw out theories, while Chase looked over the revised history.

"The kids a swimmer, what about Thoracic Outlet Syndrome?" Chase called out, pointedly turning away from Foreman and speaking only to House.

"In a ten year old?" Cameron was stalling trying to remember what TOS was.

"And not in both arms." Foreman mentioned.

House looked at Chase, who only looked at him. "Would be if he swam the butterfly."

"Then why would one side be more swollen?" Cameron finally remembered what they were talking about. Foreman nodded in agreement, not wanting it to be something so simple.

"Crawl is the first stroke you learn in competitive swimming. Young, inexperienced swimmer would only breathe every two strokes rather than three, making him always turn is head to one side instead of both. It would make the muscles on one side stronger and compress the space further." Chase laid out his theory.

"I don't know, TOS is pretty rare." Cameron mentioned. She hadn't known anyone who had ever had except for one lady during her residency, who had triple D breasts.

"Not rare in swimmers or kayakers." Chase pointed out. He knew at least 6 habitual swimmers back home who had shunts in their Subclavian Artery to keep blood flow open.

"I gotta go with the beach-bunny Aussie. Run a scan on his shoulders and see what you can find. But no iodine laced contrasts this time. Foreman you go to the kid's home and look in their shed to see if there is any evidence of heavy metals." The ducklings got up to leave and House added a closing comment. "And find out if the kid does the butterfly, if so then make sure he lives because that is just cool."

After Cameron and Chase had left, Foreman was pulling on his coat to head back out. He was tired but not so tired it was a problem. "A word Foreman?" Foreman sighed as he began to realize he was probably going to get chewed out by House for yelling at Chase.

"Yes."

"I hear you and the Aussie had a free for all yesterday. Did you get him scared enough to pee his ill fitting pants?"

"It was nothing like that. We had a disagreement over treatment and have dealt with it between ourselves. You have no reason to get involved." Foreman mentioned. Then threw in, "Unless you think Chase needs you to protect him?"

House was annoyed into silence for a half a beat. If he did defend Chase it would make it look like the blonde couldn't stand up for himself, which wasn't true. He could, he just usually chose not to. But if he didn't say anything than Foreman might get the idea that it was ok for him to think he had the right to act like he was above the other two ducklings. "I don't need to protect Chase. But you need to know that you three are all on the same footing. You are not his boss and you have no grounds to treat him or Cameron like an underling. You could get fired for treating a nurse that way so you damn well not ever treat another doctor that way." House hoped he had made his point without sounding like he was sticking up for the youngest duckling.

Foreman nodded and headed out. He had gotten off easy and wasn't going to complain about it.

TBC

- Next chapter Foreman and Chase work their problems out.


	4. The Talk

A/N: Thanks everyone so much for the reviews they were great. I know there were typos, I'm sorry. I got a new computer and my brother in law set it up and he but the default language to American English so it kept telling me I misspelled every other word. It made me miss ones that actually were misspelled.

I hope I managed to redeem Foreman somewhat and make Chase a little meaner. Hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these people nor would I really want to.

**Conflict 4**

Two weeks later, and frost was starting to form on the metal and window panes of the diagnostics department. Chase hadn't said a word to Foreman unless it was directly involving the care of a patient and even those were terse and clipped. Foreman had wondered whether anyone could be meaner than House but then he realized that Chase's frigid silence was crueler than House's insults. How in the world could doing nothing be so damn hurtful? Foreman hadn't realized how quiet the department could be without Chase's strange, off colour quips. He began to worry about their working relationships.

Cameron, of course, tried to work things out between them. She and Foreman had discussed what to do about Chase repeatedly and she had volunteered to try and soften him up. However, Chase resolutely refused to utter a single word about what was going on or why he was angry. Not to mention he didn't seem to be Cameron's biggest fan on the best of occasions and this was not the best of times. It had gotten to the point that even House was getting annoyed or amused by it. He had called Chase into his office twice to talk to him about it but little had changed. Though in actuality, House had called Chase into his office so they could laugh at Foreman.

Chase had taken to completely ignoring the eldest ducking. If Foreman was in the room, he left. If Foreman mentioned something during a meeting, he would only address House. He would only respond to direct questions, and then always answered by ending with "Dr. Foremen," a title that Chase hadn't used since the second day of Foreman's fellowship. Chase refused invitations and spent great deals of time in the ICU or with patients as to avoid Foreman. One could assume that Chase was just in a bad mood, but the worst was that he was positively chipper to everyone else. It only made his utter lack of attention to Foreman that much more apparent.

Foreman was being driven slowly nuts by it. He had never dealt with anyone this stubborn before. He wished Chase would talk to him, yell at, hell even take a swing at him. But all the Aussie did was occasionally stare down his nose at him like he was something under a microscope. Foreman had tried being friendly, he had tried yelling, he had even tried being snippy and sarcastic. Nothing worked. Chase was childishly pretending that he didn't exist and he was stupidly hurt by it.

On Tuesday of the second week, House called Foreman into his office. He hid his smile, partially from multiple Vicodin and partially from watching his eldest duckling squirm and bend to Chase's silent manipulations. It amused him to no extent that Chase was able to make ignoring someone so damn mean but it also saddened him because the Aussie must have learned it from somewhere and he was pretty sure he knew where.

Once they were both seated, House stared down his neurologist and said. "So what is the matter, too proud to kiss Chase's ass and get him to forgive you?"

Foreman tried not to stiffen. Why did House assume it was his fault that there was tension in the department? Chase was the one who had turned the place into a bloody ice palace. "I did apologize. He is the one causing the problems."

"Then apologize more. Eat some crow!"

"Why should I?"

"Because; I am getting tired of feeling like I am limping into a blizzard when I come into my own department. Work it out or work somewhere else till he calms down."

"Why aren't you talking to him about it? I haven't done anything to him." Foreman was more than slightly miffed at the favouritism House was showing.

"Chase is a lost cause. I have talked to him and he thinks he deserves to still be angry. I can't make him forgive you. You have to do that." In truth, Chase, House, and Wilson had had a stellar laugh about how badly Foreman was taking the cold shoulder. Foreman was getting grumpy, jumpy, and depressed by the silent treatment. It was made worse by how pleasant Chase had been to their most recent patient, an Englishman who shared Chase's love of adventure sports. Chase had sat around with their patient talking about cricket, soccer, tea, and the Queen or whatever English people talked about.

"I have tried to work things out with him. He has been an ass about it every time I try to talk to him. He keeps saying he isn't mad at me." But Foreman knew that Chase clearly was still angry. The Aussie was calling him "Dr. Foreman" to his face. Chase never used anyone's title unless it was in front of patients. It had seemed rude and disrespectful at first but then Foreman realized that House, Wilson, and Cuddy did it too. He had gotten used to just being "Foreman" and it was a slap in the face to be returned to the formality of a title.

"Chase can be such a chick sometimes. You didn't tell him that his pants made his ass look fat did you?"

"No. I make it a point not to look at his skinny ass. I am at a loss. I think I am going to have to strangle him. I have no idea how to deal with someone so mean, manipulative, and vindictive."

"Never been married I see." House sighed. "Look, the best advice I can give you for dealing with him is to remember that Chase is the bravest coward you will ever meet."

"That makes no sense. If you didn't want to help me then why did you drag me into your office when I should be home with my honey?"

"Oh but, Foreman, of course I want to help. I worry about all my pets equally. From Eric the pit bull, to the wispy Cameron cat, to the loveable cocker spaniel puppy I like to call Chase. And your honey can wait. Sharon is probably 'brokering' a deal with the head of oncology at Princeton General anyway." House raised his eye brows at the last. Foreman scowled. But House realized that his descriptions were not really accurate. Cameron was more like a puppy, always bouncy and trying to get others to play with her, while Chase was more like a cat. He would rub against you and try to get you to pet his tummy, then something would switch in his head and he would be all hisses, teeth and claws trying to push you away. It was no wonder to him that Chase didn't seem to have a steady girlfriend.

"Then explain what you mean. How the hell can he be a 'brave coward'?" Foreman crossed his arms and leaned back, hoping that House was sober enough to make sense. If not he would have to find Wilson.

"Good of you to ask, young grasshopper." Foreman rolled his eyes. "Chase is one of the toughest people I have ever met." Foreman looked skeptical. "tough" and "Chase" were not two words he generally associated with each other. House continued. "First off, any man who can run an Iron Man triathlon three years in a row is pretty freaking tough. But also, people usually credit Cameron with being so strong and tough because she lost her husband and still went on to become a very good doctor. But Cam ain't got nothing on Chase when it come to past trauma. He has watched his entire family either die or self destruct, had to play out his grief in front of national media, and still managed to become a damn good doctor. Not that I think he is all that happy being a doctor but ounce for ounce, I would trust his abilities over Cameron's. But don't tell either of them I said that. She'll get pouty and he'll get a swelled head. And during that whole Vogler mess, I think he slept with Cuddy to keep his job. Talk about traumatic."

"Your rambling House." Foreman pointed out. They had no patient and it was the end of the day so there were two Vicodin and several cups of coffee floating around inside of the older doctor. It tended to make him trail off onto tangents.

"I am not. Anyway, it takes a certain type of mettle to deal with all that and not fall apart yourself. Most people faced with that sort of situation would end up as drunks or addicts themselves. Chase is relatively normal in comparison to what he should be like or appears normal anyway." Foreman thought for a moment. He had known many people from similar circumstances while growing up. Kids with no fathers and addicted mothers and none of them had ever really made anything of themselves.

"But you also have to understand that almost everything he ever does is motivated by fear. He is afraid of his own shadow, proverbially speaking. He is paralyticly phobic about opening himself up for hurt. If you can get him to trust you, he will be loyal to the point of stupidity. Just think of him like a severely beaten dog. Once he finds someone he can trust he latches on like they are a life saver." House continued

"Is that why you call him 'your puppy?'" Foreman asked, contemplating what he had just learned.

"No, I call him that because he reminds me of my brother's cocker spaniel puppy that took a chomp out of me when I was kid."

"So then Chase isn't that loyal if he bit you in the ass over Vogler?"

"There were other factors at play there that don't concern you." With Wilson he would discuss such things, but not with Foreman. "Suffice to say, Chase has teeth and claws and will use them but only if he is backed into a corner. He strikes me as the sort who won't fight unless he has no other choice but when he does he goes for a kill. He's that quiet guy you always have to look out for, like Jim Jones or Ted Bundy."

"You think he has skeletons in his closet?"

"I think his mother's lives there, or he thinks she does. He is probably one step away from being Norman Bates. Word to the wise, don't mention her. He clams up tighter than a virgin's thighs on a first date. I think he has just as many 'mommy issues' as 'daddy issues.' Maybe she molested him. Why else would he voluntarily hang out with Cuddy." House referred to the fact that once a week Cuddy took Chase out to lunch at some Jewish deli down the road and she always came back looking happy. Maybe she was actually enjoying some Czech sausage, who knows? He didn't put it past Chase to sleep with the boss to safe guard his job and you couldn't get more bossy than Cuddy.

"How does that help me get him to quit being an ice prince?"

"Have you tried talking to him?" Foreman gave House a sour look. Of course he had tried. "I don't mean talking at him and telling him what to do. I mean actually talking to him, like an equal. Make him unclench a little." House pointed out, knowing damn well how preachy Foreman could sometimes be.

"Who would you have fired if all things were equal?" Foreman asked out of no where.

"Chase."

"I thought you just said that he was a better doctor than Cameron?" Foreman was not expecting that. He assumed his head would have been on the chopping block since he and House fought the most.

"Precisely. Cuddy already arranged for the fired Dr. Chase to be hired by the Anesthesia and ICU department and act as my liaison. But he got jumpy."

"Did you tell him your plan?" House looked away, clearly indicating he had not warned Chase. "What if Vogler had said no and made you get rid of someone entirely, no deals or transfers?"

"Cameron." House answered. He liked her, she was hot, but she was also the weakest link in the team.

"Cam? Why? Chase I can understand but why her. She works twice as hard as Chase does."

"Exactly. She works twice as hard and still isn't right as often as he is. Think about it, Chase knew to x-ray the teacher's leg, he knew to ultrasound the swimmer's head, he guessed tropical parasites with the cheating wife, and he guessed immunoglobulin deficiency with the Senator. I should really stop ignoring his suggestions.

"Cameron is the Eastern ideal of hard work conquering all. Chase is the Western ideal of talent. Being a westerner, I would choose Chase's natural intellect and creativity over Cameron's hard work. Besides, immunologists are a dime a dozen compared with good intensivists. Though, frankly I think he is wasting his talent in the ICU and should switch to infectious diseases."

Foreman was stunned. He never would have thought of it that way. To him Chase was the weakest link because he seemed lazy and scatter brained compared to Cameron and himself. He was the least logical person he had ever worked with other than House. Chase was horrible at taking facts and following them to their logical conclusion. He always weighed in other factors and seemed to pull ideas out of thin air. It just wasn't the way Foreman worked. It made no sense to him. He simply could not fathom how such a textbook divergent thinker became a doctor. But, he decided he needed to turn the conversation back to the original point. "So how do I get him to open up to me and trust me?" Foreman was getting tired of having to sit through so much useless banter to find out the few pieces of information he needed. He wished House could be more direct.

"Get him good and tired or good and drunk. That is the best way to keep him compliant. Believe me; politicians could take evasion lessons from him when he is chipper and well rested. If you can keep him confused and off balance, you might just have a chance." House well knew this fact. The easiest way to get Chase to crack was to pick at him little by little over time. Keep him off balance and erode away at his defenses until he is weak and vulnerable. He had done that, when Rowan was there. It had been like slowly unwinding the layers of a bandage to get to the scab underneath. But the problem was, when House had removed the last layer of bandage, it wasn't a well healed scab but an infected, bloody gushing wound. He realized that the only thing stopping Chase from bleeding to death was the bandages he had covered himself with. Ever since then, House fancied he could see blood seeping through to the surface if Robert thought no one was looking. It was almost painful to look at.

After Chase had ratted him out to Vogler, House had been insanely angry. He could have destroyed Chase, not professionally but personally. He knew how to kill him. He knew the sick infection that lived inside the duckling. He knew that with a few well placed barbs, he could make Chase crumble. But he hadn't done it. House might be abrasive, but he wasn't cruel. He didn't think he would be able to sit back and enjoy watching Chase self destruct. He knew it would happen one day, if Chase didn't get help, but he didn't want to be the cause of it. He may like watching people struggle like watching car accidents, but he didn't think he would be able to watch someone kill themselves by inches like Chase would, slowly smothering himself under fear and self loathing.

"I'll try. I really have to go. I'll see you tomorrow." Foreman left House and headed home to his sweetie, Sharon. She would be a better sounding board at this point anyway.

On Friday afternoon of the second week, three days after his talk with House, Foreman had had enough and walked right up to Chase as he was packing his things. "You, me, pizza and beer at Shenanigans tonight." And walked off, hoping Chase would follow him there.

Half an hour later the two sat staring at each other over a pub table at a local bar. Foreman ordered a pitcher of beer and a large pizza with sausage and pepperonis on half and veggies on the other half. He remembered that Chase didn't like meat on his pizza. Chocolate munching aside, sometimes the Aussie could be more of an anorexic bitch than Cameron. Other than teenage girls in an eating disorder clinic, he didn't think he had ever seen anyone pickier about what he ate than Chase. He had wondered for awhile if Chase had been heavy and been picked on about it as a kid, but after seeing the pictures on the internet of the Aussie in all stages of childhood, it was clear that he had always been rail thin. So his aversion to high calorie foods, other than chocolate, was still a mystery.

It was good enough that Foreman ordered for both of them. Sometimes, especially in local restaurants, Chase got so bloody homesick he wanted to cry. He missed his own country. It had been made worse by their most recent patient. Edward Sawyer, a 24 year old male from York, who was an avid skier, surfer, and mountain biker, and Chase had hit it off famously. He too enjoyed all of those pursuits, though he wasn't that good at surfing, he preferred SCUBA diving, not as much of a chance of sun burning. It felt wonderful to talk to someone else who understood him. It just made him realize how much he missed being in a place where people didn't make fun of his accent, the way he phrased things, liked the same sports, and liked the same food. He missed fresh fish and roasted lamb. He missed jaffle, good, spicy Thai food and being able to get sushi any time of the day or night. He missed not being treated like a foreigner. In short, he really wanted to go home.

Foreman turned towards the TV but surreptitiously watched Chase fumble in his coat pocket to pull out a small pink pill and then quickly swallow it. Foreman didn't bother to question; he already knew from Chase's records what it was. The blonde duckling took Celexa, a fairly strong anti-depressant, though he wasn't surprised to read it. He had been looking for something like it for a while now, even before their argument. It explained Chase's obsessive chewing on things and always eating chocolate. Most SSIs caused bruxism or teeth grinding and he remembered from his psych rotation that people who had that side effect tended to chew on things in an effort to alleviate it. Also, Celexa was commonly known for causing nausea and eating small amounts of food frequently, usually helped most patients. Chocolate was a preferred food for most.

Foreman stupidly said the first thing that came into his mind and immediately regretted it. "So how long have you been taking anti-depressants?" Chase froze like a cat caught with his paw in a fish tank. Foeman tried to back pedal afraid he had ruined his chance before it had even started. "Sorry, man, that is your business." Chase dropped his eyes and started chewing on a straw. Much like he usually did, Foreman had an insane urge to yank the straw out of the Aussie's mouth. His Granny used to slap him upside his head when he did things like that.

They sat in a very uncomfortable silence until the waitress brought their beer. Foreman immediately downed one. Chase glared at it angrily and asked for water instead, she smiled sweetly and rushed off to fill his order. She couldn't have been more than 19 and Foreman guessed was probably sizing Chase up for a fling. After she returned and told them their food would be out soon, Foreman tried to salvage the evening. He studied Chase for a moment and watched the blonde's eye lids droop as he ran his hands through his floppy hair. Chase had just gotten off of a full call rotation through ICU and House's department. Foreman guessed he would have been at work for about 30 hours straight and probably pretty darned tired. According to House, this was his best chance.

"Look, Chase, you and me have got to work out this crap between us. It is getting to everyone. We can't take care of the patients if we are at each other's throats all the time." Foreman thought he had done well. He knew that bringing into question Chase's talent for medicine could easily sway the younger doctor.

"I haven't been at your throat. I don't recall saying anything even mildly rude to you." Chase's accent made him sound even more cold and high handed than an American would uttering the same words.

Foreman took a deep breath and tried to quell his anger. Chase was purposely being obtuse. "That is the point; you haven't said a word to me in weeks. You completely ignore me. I feel like I have to pantomime to get you to listen to me."

"I don't recall being particularly inattentive either." Chase sipped his water, vaguely enjoying watching Foreman squirm. Foreman downed a second glass of beer.

"You know what I mean. This frigid treatment like you're my wife and you're trying to cut me off from sex."

"I hardly think I am preventing you from enjoying your little drug rep." He used the term 'little' liberally. Chase thought the woman was a pig.

"Damn it. Will you just act like a human being for once and not like a waspish, stuck up ass!" Foreman snapped. Then he took a deep breath and continued. "Look, I know you are still pissed about what happened, but it is time you let it go. This shit between us is causing everyone stress and I am just plain tired of it."

"So what do you want me to do?" Chase asked reasonably.

"I want you to stop being angry about it."

"Fine, I'm not angry any more, can I go now?" Chase rose and began to fish some money out of his pocket. It looked like rain and he wanted to get home before it started. He hated riding his bike home in this type of weather. He turned to leave.

"You are totally infuriating. No wonder your father wants nothing to do with you!" Oh shit! Foreman had not meant to say that out loud, maybe he was more tired than he thought he was. Chase stopped mid stride, back stiff. "Sorry man, I didn't mean it that way." Foreman tried to appease. Chase just continued to walk away. Foreman ran after him. He didn't catch him until they were just outside of the window and Foreman grabbed his arm. "Chase, wait." Chase shook out of his grip but stopped, his head hanging down. "That was nasty of me, I didn't mean it. Come back inside. We need to talk."

"I believe you have said enough." Chase answered. He finally looked up and Foreman realized that he had shot straight past Chase's armour and the Aussie was trying to hide that he was badly hurt.

"No, I haven't. Look, that was out of line, just come back in and let's talk about things. You may not have a problem with the way things are, but I do, so come on." Foreman turned and Chase hesitated. This was all about Foreman not him. Eric wanted to assuage his guilt and mend a bridge that he had burned. But he was completely disregarding the fact that the other side of the bridge might not want him back. He sighed and followed the black man back inside.

Once they were seated, Foreman poured Chase a glass of beer and another for himself. Chase pushed it away, shaking his head. "Drink it man. It will loosen you up a little." Chase agreed and sipped at it. He didn't like the taste or the smell of any alcohol. Every time he got around it, he had knee jerk sick feeling in his gut from the smell. But gin was the worst. Some times the smell could actually make him physically ill if he had to be around it long enough.

Chase watched his colleague for any clues as to an ulterior motive but he found none. Foreman may generally just want to make up but if he did, he was going about it the wrong way. Chase drank half of his beer, figuring that maybe being drunk might help the situation. It wasn't like he had to work tomorrow. "What do you really want from me?" Chase asked after almost five minutes had passed and he started to feel pleasantly warm from the beer. It was a wonderful feeling, numbing and warming at the same time, like the safety of your bed. But it was also a heady feeling like being in love. He was afraid of it. He had seen first hand with both his parents how alcohol and drugs could all too quickly become a substitute for the real things.

What did Foreman want? He wasn't sure. He wanted Chase to quit giving him the cold shoulder. He wanted the department to go back to the way it was, with Chase and House sniping at each other and Cameron mooning over House, while he stood back and enjoyed it like a TV show. He wanted the tension to be gone and humour to come back. He stupidly wanted to see Chase smile again so that he would know that his fellow duckling was ok. Knowing what he knew now, Foreman replayed every reference to drugs, alcohol, and suicide over and over in his head and realized that they were far too frequent. But why did he care all of a sudden? Maybe he could ignore Chase's idiosyncrasies after all.

"I want us to talk. I want things to be cool between us but for real this time. And in order for that to happen, we have to actually talk to each other. Not me preach and you stonewall." Chase stared at him suspiciously. "No games and no power plays this time. Just you and me and getting to know each other. Go on, ask me a question, about anything then I'll ask you one."

"How will this make me stop being mad at you?" Chase asked. He was wholly uncomfortable with the idea of having to answer questions.

"Because, one reason we knock heads so much is because we don't really know each other. I mean, God man, the only thing you have ever said about yourself is that you like to ski and that one of your professors used to use sonograms to see bleeding in the brain."

"What does anything else have to do with our ability to work together?"

"Because." Foreman talked slower as he tried to explain himself, as if he were talking to a moron. "Maybe Down Under it is normal for work associations to always be cold and formal, but you are in America now and we are a lot more friendly and laid back." Chase seemed unconvinced. "Just humour me."

"Fine. How old are you?" It was an innocuous question. One that he would be willing to answer if need be.

"I'm 32. I'll be 33 this year. Now it is my turn. What is your full name?" Foreman was dying to know why Chase had dropped his very ethnic last name in favour of a bland vanilla one.

"Robert Saint Benedict Pronásledovat" Chase answered.

"That's a long name." Foreman mentioned. It seemed strange to his ears. "Why don't you go by that name? Where did Chase come from?"

"Pronásledovat means 'to chase' in Czech. When my parents moved to Australia, my father decided to drop it professionally to make his life easier."

"Why don't you go by Prasdala, Prodnal, Proladanslavot?" Foreman stuttered, knowing he was totally butchered the name.

"Pronásledovat" Chase corrected. "And you just answered your own question. There are few things more annoying than having an unpronounceable name. I spent my entire grammar school career as 'that kid, who sits behind Albert Prancler.' University wasn't any better. I kept it until the end of my first year then gave up and started going by 'Chase.'" He had also selfishly wanted to remove himself from all the press surrounding his mother's death. Her case had involved her son Robert Pronásledovat, Robert Chase was a nobody.

"So you have dropped all your heritage from your normal life?" He didn't think he had ever heard Chase mention anything about his cultural heritage other than being from Australia. To a proud, black man, that was just sad.

"No."

"Me, I'm proud as hell of my African American heritage. Do you know anything about where your parents came from? "

"Of course." Chase was getting annoyed.

"Like what? You seem like a run of the mill, vanilla, WASP to me."

"That isn't my problem." Chase snapped. How dare Foreman assume he knew nothing about where he came from just because he didn't wear it like a badge. He decided to make Foreman feel stupid. "I, unlike you, know where my family came from and can speak both their mother tongues, Czech and Afrikaans. You, who have no idea what part of Africa you came from, have no right to lecture me! I have closer ties to Africa than you do."

"You are getting really close to crossing a line, Chase." Foreman intoned menacingly. There were just some things that a little blonde guy did not say to a black man.

"And you are getting really close to pissing me off even more, Foreman." Chase snapped. There food arrived then and Chase decided to let it drop. Hopefully Foreman would be distracted by its arrival.

Foreman took a deep breath and sighed. "I know your father is from Czechoslovakia, so I'm guessing that your mother must be from Africa some where, though I find it really hard to believe, looking at your pasty, white ass."

"Yes, my father is from the Czech Republic." Chase corrected. Czechs did not like being associated with Slovaks, at least his father didn't. "And yes, my mother was from South Africa. And you do realize that a fairly significant percentage of South Africa and Namibia are white, don't you?"

"Yeah, it just isn't what I think of when I think of an African. So I am guessing your mother was racist?"

Chase rolled his eyes. Here they went, he was a white guy, he had to be racist. He had grown up with a mother and father, who both hated other groups for no good reason but it had never rubbed off on him. He had learned to distrust everyone equally. His determining factor for friendship was whether a person would respect his privacy. "Yes, she was. She grew up in Apartheid South Africa. It was sort of required."

"But you aren't racist?" Foreman wished that Chase was, then he would have a concrete reason to dislike him, but in fact, he had never seen Chase do anything like that.

"No. My mother was but she didn't really expect me to be. Though she would be spinning in her grave if she knew I almost married a Coloured woman from Cape Town." Chase immediately regretted saying that. Stupid beer! He had just given away too much information.

Foreman dug in to the pizza almost immediately saviouring every bite, reminding himself to question Chase about this woman later. "So you have been to Africa?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"South Africa, Namibia, Egypt, Kenya, Sudan, Dutch Congo, or what ever they call it now, and Angola." Chase on the other hand used several napkins to blot the excess grease off, then tore off the crust, discarding it. He then removed the vegetables from the cheese, removed the cheese from the slice then replaced the vegetables on top of it. Foreman had finished nearly two pieces in the amount of time it took for Chase to get his one slice in what he considered edible condition.

"What is it like?" He was interested. He had always wanted to go to Africa.

"Parts of it are breath taking. Cape Town might be the most beautiful place in the world. But parts are muggy and icky."

Eric watched in fascination as Chase pulled his food apart. It just wasn't right to see a man doing that. "Do you ever go crazy and eat an entire birthday cake and pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream at one sitting?"

Chase wrinkled his nose. "No! That's disgusting. Why would I do that?"

"Because it tastes good and it makes you feel good."

"I think it would make me feel nauseous." Chase commented in disgust. His mother had been anorexic and a good portion of her issues had rubbed off on her son. Mostly because she was always making him diet when he was young. Now it was ingrained in him to habitually wonder about the calorie content of foods. Though he wasn't nearly as bad off as she had been, he still rebelliously ate chocolate every now and again.

"So, I have never seen you get drunk, I have never seen you gorge on sweets, I have never seen you do anything even remotely normal. What do you do to burn off steam, to relax, to comfort yourself when you are upset?"

Chase didn't like the accusatory tone Foreman was using. "What do you do?"

"I call my family, talk to my girlfriend. Eat ice cream until I am torpid and watch football games. Now, what about you." Foreman asked around a mouth full of pizza.

"I go swimming, running, or for a nice long bike ride." Chase had been engaged in endurance sports since he was 7 years old. He found the repetitive nature of them meditative. Plus there was the masochistic part of him that reveled in the soreness of his muscles, the growing ache in his bad knee, and the burning of his lungs. It was a socially acceptable way to punish himself for his sins, mutely martyring himself in penance on the Alter of fitness in a way he no longer felt worthy of doing in the Church. But he wouldn't tell Foreman that, no one needed to know that.

"Why doesn't that surprise me? Anyway, it is your turn, ask me a question."

Chase sighed, wanting to get out of the smoky, loud bar so he could go home and curl up in bed. "Who is your best friend?" He finally asked, not really interested in the answer.

"My cousin Leroy. He's a special effects guy in Hollywood. What about you, who is your best friend and what do they do?" He wondered if Chase even had friends. He knew he had soccer buddies from the team he played on, but he had never really noticed Chase to have steady friends.

"Cass, Cassie. She is a singer and actress." Chase answered. She was just another one of the many things he missed from home, not that she was there right now. She was on tour in Japan somewhere as far as he knew. They still talked to each other at least twice a week, but it wasn't the same thing as having her come over at three in the morning because her most recent boy friend had dumped her. He always let her spend the night and held her while she cried. Or him falling asleep on her couch while the two of them watched stupid kung fu movies because he was tired from school or being on call. She always threw a blanket over him. She was the only one who ever had.

"Your best friend is a girl? Is she an ex or something?" Foreman wondered if she was the same woman he had mentioned almost getting married to. He had spent some more time researching Chase specifically on the internet and had found a few mentions and pictures of him being romantically involved with some Australian singer named Cassandra Iolta, who he guessed must be Cass, and some South African judge's daughter. She had been a hottie, at least Foreman had thought so.

"No, nothing like that. Cass and I are like brother and sister. I've known her since I was 10 days old." Chase corrected.

"Did she turn you down, when you tried?" Foreman tried to joke.

"No. I never tried nor would I ever. We're just friends." Chase would never risk ruining their friendship, it meant far too much to him. She was the one person who had always been there for him no matter what. She too had grown up with an out of control addict for a mother but her father was a strong, down to earth man that compensated for it. But she understood what Chase had gone through and she didn't judge him or make him feel inadequate when he was afraid or just wanted to curl up and hide. She was more than happy to stand by and shield him while he licked his wounds, for that he would always love her.

"Ok, my turn. What was your best Christmas present?" This was a favoured topic of Foreman and Cameron. She liked to work in the fact that House had bought her a gift to anyone and everyone that would listen. Foreman had never had the heart to tell he that House had gotten him and Chase presents too. He had given Foreman a gift certificate to an on-line store that sold track shoes and had given Chase a stainless steel pen he couldn't chew through.

"You first." Chase commented, while he tried to think of one.

"Ok, my dad gave me two court side tickets to see the Lakers play the Bulls. Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan on the same court. It was awesome." Foreman smiled. His father had worked double shifts and even did a few odd jobs to get the money to pay for them. Foreman had been dating a girl at the time and his father assumed that Eric would take her. But the only person he wanted to take was his old man. They had had a great time.

Chase thought about it. He knew the answer immediately but Foreman wouldn't understand. On Christmas Eve when he was four years old, he had gotten a bad case of strep throat and his father hadn't believed him. They had dragged him to a long drawn out midnight mass and he had been miserable. It was hot and stuffy in cathedral, made worse by his formal clothes and he had a fever making him cranky. About an hour in to a three hour mass, he had started whining to his parents that he wanted to leave. His mother had been holding his little brother and would go into labour with his sister later in the day. She was in no mood to deal with him so he started in on his father. Rowan, the more religious of the two, had told him to be quiet. Every 15 minutes he would ask if they could leave. Finally his father had picked him up and carried him outside into the vestibule to yell at him without disturbing anyone. It was then that Rowan realized his son was burning with fever and, in fact quite ill.

Rowan, being Rowan, had not taken Robert home but took him back inside and held him in his lap, hoping to keep him quiet. It had worked. Chase had still felt awful and was cranky but he had relaxed against his father's chest. His memories of it were hazy and dream like but he remembered the peace of falling asleep to the sound of the Latin Liturgy and his father's heartbeat. It was the last time he could ever remember his father initiating a hug.

But he knew he couldn't tell Foreman this. What type of a pathetic looser would the older man think he was? So he gave an obvious answer. "When my sister was born, Christmas day when I was four."

"You have a younger sister?" Foreman was surprised. He had always pegged Chase as an only child.

"Had. She and my brother died in an auto accident when I was six." Chase explained. He didn't see any reason to hide this. It happened 20 years ago, his mother had been drunk and driven into the side of huge truck. Things had gone from bad to worse in his life after that. He had been sad and upset that his parents hadn't even tried to make him feel better. At the time he hadn't known that adults could hurt too. His father had grown more cold and distant and his mother had become more out of control. Both seemed to forget that they had a son who had survived.

"I'm sorry man, that is sad."

"It was twenty years ago, I barely remember." Chase wanted to change the subject. "What about you? Do you have any siblings?"

"I have two brothers and a sister. All younger than me. We used to raise hell and fight constantly but now that we are older we are all good friends. My sister just got engaged. I want her to wait till she graduates college to get married but I doubt she will." Foreman lamented. Neither of his brothers had gone to college but his younger sister had made it into a small liberal arts college in northern California on a scholarship. He hoped she didn't screw up her life over some guy. But while they were on the subject of families, there were some things he wanted to know about Chase's. "So my mother was a mail carrier and my father was a janitor. I know your father is a doctor, but what about your mother? Did she work or did Daddy's money pay for everything."

"Daddy doesn't have that much money. The money came from Mum's side of the family. She was a ballerina with The Australian Ballet Company in Melbourne until I was about seven. Then she got too old and became an artist and photographer." Chase really wanted to change the subject now.

"Why did you become a doctor?" Chase blurted out.

Foreman smiled, glad that Chase had spontaneously asked him a question, maybe the Aussie was finally starting to loosen up. Even if he did look like his shoulders were going to snap from the tension. "I became a doctor because I am smart and love science. I like the rules and logic of it. I also like the paycheck and the respect that comes along with it." Foreman's smile got even larger. "What about you?" He was curious because House had said he didn't think Chase really liked being a doctor.

"It was just what I got into University for." Chase dismissed the question. He wasn't about to give an honest answer. He became a doctor because he was afraid his father would never speak to him again if he didn't. He realized he needed a more innocuous question for Foreman. "Have you ever been skiing?"

"Hell no, black men don't ski?"

"Why not?" Chase loved skiing. He reveled in the silence of the mountains and the physical strain of a fast and furious decent.

"Because it is cold, wet, and way too dangerous." Foreman had always wanted to try but he had never had the money. Ski trips from LA were pricey and he had never been able to afford it. To him, skiing was a wealthy person's sport.

"No, it is fun. Really invigorating, but the slopes around here aren't really gnarly enough to be great." Chase countered. Foreman noticed that his companion's accent had gotten about 50 times worse during his speech, complete with inflecting upwards at the end like he was asking a question.

"If you say so man. I have to pee." Foreman headed off towards that men's room and Chase relaxed a bit. They had been sitting in the smoky pub for 45 minutes and his lungs were aching. He gave into the coughing fit that had been threatening to erupt for the last 15 minutes. Chase had, like several million other children, suffered from childhood asthma that rarely bothered him anymore. His lungs were now stronger than the average man's and he could easily forget about the years he spend coughing and wheezing away the nights. But he still had two triggers that would make him gasp, viral bronchial infections and cigarette smoke. Both his parents had been heavy smokers and his asthma had all but disappeared after he no longer had to be around them.

The cough was harsh, rasping, and made his chest hurt. He knew it was unlikely to turn into a full asthma attack, he hadn't had one in nearly seven years and that had only been because he had bronchial pneumonia. However, it would still restrict his lungs and make working out tomorrow unpleasant. He wanted to leave.

Luckily, Foreman came staggering out just about the time Chase managed to get his cough back under control. He made sure to count each breath to keep them even and steady even though his body wanted to speed them up. He had learned this trick, over years and years of trying to suppress the urge to cough and to gasp through lungs that were nearly closed. He would sit in his attic bed room three floors above his parents and hear the muffled sounds of their fights and their love making. He would hide his discomfort up there so not to disturb his mother's hangover or his father's anger. The skill had served him well, when Foreman returned he noticed nothing amiss.

"Foreman, this has been fun, really, but I want to go home." Chase mentioned as he threw money on the table.

"Wait, we aren't done yet." Foreman stated, trying to make Chase stay a while longer. There was still more he wanted to know and more he wanted to get across.

"Can we leave then?" He wasn't able to cover the cough that slipped out.

"Sure man. Let's go." Foreman soothed and watched Chase nearly run out of the pub.

Once outside, Foreman fished for his keys, realizing that the two shots of whiskey after his beer were not such a good idea if he was planning on driving. Chase noticed and said. "Come on, we can go to my place, it isn't far." He then unlocked his bike and walked it towards the park, Foreman followed.

"Why do you always ride a bike if you have a car?" Foreman questioned. He had always associated bike riding with people too poor or unable to drive a car. He knew Chase had a car and knew how to drive but the Aussie usually rode his bike to work instead.

"I like bike riding. It's faster, cleaner, and a good work out."

"You spend about 6 hours a day working out, it seems, like this small distance makes a difference?" Chase often spent his lunch hour or the times between his shifts in the hospital gym. Oddly enough, Cuddy and Stacy had both changed their work out times to coincide with Chase's. Stacy always called him the 'Australian eye candy," well not to his face.

Chase paused and sighed. "You know how when you drive you usually don't actually pay attention to driving, most of the time you are just on auto pilot? When I am tired and try to do that, I keep trying to drive on the wrong side of the road. So it is just better and safer for everyone if I bike ride through the park." Chase smiled self-deprecatingly.

It began to rain half way across the park and Foreman started to wonder how far "not far" really was? Then they turned a corner and ended up along the river. Chase ducked in between two buildings right on the edge of the water and stopped in front of a huge warehouse with heavy security doors on it. He looked up and saw lights shining from several windows.

Chase unlocked the outer door then punched in a code on a keypad. Then he opened a second door that led into a small vestibule with a white tile floor. There were mailboxes lined up and Foreman tried to tell which was Chase's. Chase hitched his bike over his shoulder by the tube and headed up the stairs. After three flights Foreman started panting and by the time they reached the penthouse on the seventh floor, where Chase lived, Foreman had actually broken a sweat. Chase wasn't even breathing hard. The walk through the relatively fresh air of the park had quickly alleviated the tightness in his chest.

As Chase was fumbling with a large steel door, Foreman commented. "I guess those stairs are the reason your ass is so skinny."

Chase slid the door open and waved Foreman to proceed him. "Maybe if you walked up and down more stairs your ass wouldn't be so large."

Foreman decided not to take offense because he was too busy staring at Chase's home. It was not what he had expected, to say the least. Foreman had expected some large cozy house with expensive floors and big comfy couches. All of it bathed in warm colours and soft fabrics that some interior designer had picked out for him (if Foreman had learned anything, it was that Chase had horrible taste in fabrics, just look at his clothes). But this place was huge. It was one room that took up and entire floor, with exposed brick walls and concrete floors. One wall was several 12' high windows that looked out over the river. Foreman could actually see the hospital from there.

Everything was cold and hard with sharp edges and looked like it belonged in a EuroModern catalogue. Foreman hated it. It was the ugliest place he had ever seen. It looked half assed and unfinished to him with all the exposed girders and pipes. But one thing he did find interesting was the fish tank, which took up almost all of one wall. It had to be at least 11' long. All sorts of fish swirled around in an ever changing collage of colour. It was backlit with soft light and made a gentle water fall noise.

The kitchen wasn't much better. The cabinets were light wood with long metal handles and the countertops were soapstone and reminded Foreman of lab tables. His table was steal and looked suspiciously like an autopsy bay. Everything was back lit with soft, dim lights, making it appear that pieces of glass and other assorted objects were glowing.

Foreman looked over in time to see Chase hang his bike up on the wall beside three others. He then followed suit with Chase and took off his shoes, leaving them in a rack to drain. "Hold on, I'll get you a towel." Chase told him and padded off into the wide expanse of his loft, disappearing around a corner so he was behind the door. Foreman then realized that the space wrapped completely around the interior staircase. He moved further in to look around. The place was bloody huge. He noticed there was nothing personal around. No decorations to show what type of person lived there. The most decorative thing he could see were a set a screens that blocked off a work out area containing a weight machine and a very expensive treadmill.

Before he could take in much more, Chase appeared with a fluffy grey towel and a pair of pajamas. "Here, I hope they fit." Foreman then realized he was soaking wet and dripping slowly on the floor. "The bathroom is around there." Chase pointed to a large glass block wall that was beside a metal stair case. Foreman guessed that Chase's bedroom must be up on the second floor. He nodded and headed towards the bathroom.

There was no door on it, just a long curve that blocked it from view. When he reached the main area, he took back everything nasty he thought about Chase's home. This was the nicest bathroom he had ever seen in his life. It was bigger than his first apartment. There was a large double vanity and a huge frameless shower. The bathtub was easily big enough to fit two people and hat jets for a spa treatment. All of it was covered in iridescent blue and grey glass tiles. Talk about luxury.

When he re-emerged, Chase was in the kitchen pouring water for them both. He was barefoot and wearing pajama pants and a long sleeve tee shirt. His hair was wet and shaggy and he had on wire rimmed glasses. All in all, it made him look like he was about fifteen.

"This is a nice place, how much did it set you back." Foreman asked, curious how much it would cost for him to get someplace like this and actually finish it.

"About $750,000 US, but another $150,000 to renovate it." Chase mentioned off handedly. It wasn't a great sum for him. His mother had been quite wealthy.

"For this apartment?" Foreman was shocked.

"No, for the building. I bought it just before I started work here and had it renovated into a penthouse and 12 flats. It paid for itself already." He handed Foreman glass of water and sipped at his own.

"I think I need something stronger." Chase turned around and retrieved an unopened bottle of whiskey from his cabinet. It was there for company, he never drank it. If he were going to drink, he drank gin. He hated it. The smell alone made him sick to his stomach so he couldn't enjoy it even if he wanted to. It was his way of making sure he never became an alcoholic like both his parents.

Soon Chase led them over to a seating area with low leather couches and a sleek leather chair. Chase ceded the couch to the older man and took the chair, curling his legs under himself. They sat staring at each other for a moment. "Are we supposed to finish our game?" Chase asked. Foreman nodded yes. "Ok, why do you want to know all these things, for real?"

"Have a drink." Foreman pushed the bottle towards his companion. Chase said no but Foreman insisted. "Stop being such a pussy and take a drink." Chase relented and took a small sip, choking on the burn. His stomach lurched at the taste and he had a rather unpleasant image of loosing his dinner all over his coffee table. He quickly handed the bottle back to Foreman. "See, it didn't kill you." Chase nodded again, his eyes watering. Foreman found the childlike reaction to a shot amusing. It made Chase seem even younger. He was beginning to understand House's comment about Chase being a 'brave coward." Chase was the strangest mix of hardened pain and childlike vulnerability. Some of it had to do with his looks, but a lot of it was from his mannerisms as well. Foreman could well understand House's fascination with the youngest duckling, the sweeping dichotomies of his personality made him the most enigmatic of them all. It was like there were 20 different Chases and you could never tell which one you were going to be dealing with from one moment to the next. It made him very interesting as a clinical study, Foreman thought.

After Chase regained his composure, he asked Foreman to answer his question again. Foreman answered this time. "I want to understand you. House is easy. He is a crotchety old man. He is miserable with his life and insists on making everyone else miserable for his own pleasure. He hates everyone and thinks the whole world should bow down to him because he is a cripple. Cameron, she is a sweetheart. Smart, funny, and pretty but not really sure of herself yet. She still thinks she needs to have someone tell her what to do. She'll grow out of that eventually. She just has to learn how strong she is. But you, I don't get. You are rich as shit but dress and act like a hobo. You could have half the women in the hospital but get annoyed when they hit on you. You could be a famous doctor in Australia based on your name alone but you came to a small hospital on the other side of the world. It just doesn't make sense."

Chase contemplated Foreman's comments for a moment. He wholly disagreed with most of them. He didn't think Cameron was a sweetheart. He thought she was a manipulative bitch, who hid behind her looks and seemingly shy demeanor to get men to do what she wanted. Just look at how she had played House by resigning. House had fallen into her trap and gone running back to her. She played dumb and insecure to keep people off their guard, all the while playing them against each other. He had seen his mother, her beautiful friends, and his own friend, Cassie, do it enough times to recognize it. And he had to admit he sometimes did it too, played the dumb blonde or the lazy slacker to get people to open up to him.

Then there was House, yes, he was crotchety and probably wasn't happy with how his life was going but he certainly didn't think that he enjoyed making other people miserable. Ok, maybe a little bit, but not to the point Foreman thought. House reminded him of his own father. There was the cold distant side but there was also the vulnerability. House's was his physical ailments, at least those were the obvious ones. Rowan's were hidden much deeper but Chase clearly remembered the first time he had seen them. He had been eight years old, driving home from a violin lesson, thank god his parents let him give that up. He had a tin hear and was just plain horrible at it. It had been chilly and rainy. His father was ignoring him as usual and he contented himself with watching the street lights go by and feel warm. His father had been almost an hour late picking him up and he was soaked.

Up ahead had been a police blockade. There was a manhunt going on for a killer or something, he didn't remember the details. But he did remember the police shining the light in the car window asking them to step out. He remembered a huge dog barking and snapping its jaws at them, and he remembered the death grip his father had on him when he pulled him out of the car. His father's hands, those famous doctor's hands, were shaking when he removed his ID. His father had jumped when the dog barked and shoved him even further behind himself. He hadn't understood what the problem was, they were policemen they helped people.

Soon the cops let them go and they got back in the car and drove further away. A few streets later his father pulled over and dropped his head into his hands, sobbing. Robert had watched in fear. He hadn't understood then. Now he knew it for what it was, post traumatic stress syndrome, but then he just knew his father was sad and he wanted to make him feel better. He had crawled over the center console and wrapped his arms around his father's neck. His father had clung to him crying. He had pet the older man's hair trying to soothe him. It had been strange, to be the adult, but it wasn't the first or the last time. Finally his father had calmed down and driven them home. He hadn't talked to Robert again for almost two weeks even though they lived in the same house. He couldn't figure out what he had done wrong.

Later, his mother would explain that Rowan's parents had been taken away by the Komunistická strana Československa, the Czech communist party, and he had been orphaned when he was 13. The police, the light, and dogs were too strong of a reminder. It had helped to know, that he hadn't done something to make his father mad, at least not that time. There were some people who should just never have had children, and Rowan was one of them. Chase supposed he couldn't blame his father but that didn't mean it didn't still hurt.

But Chase voiced none of this. Instead, he just commented. "Some people don't want to be famous, in fact, some people just want to be left alone."

Foreman bit his tongue from getting angry about Chase's seeming non sequitur answer. "My turn, so how do you feel about Cam?" Foreman asked. He had wondered what had changed between the two. Chase and she used to seem like friends, maybe not close ones, but at least as if they liked each other. Then things just sort of soured between them and Foreman wanted to know why. He had suspected for awhile that they might have had an affair and then one of them wanted to end it but Cameron assured him that was not what had happened. She said she wasn't in the least bit attracted to Chase. Though, he had caught her doing the same glassy eyed stare at him as he walked away that House and Wilson did to her, only she would never admit it.

"Cameron is a good doctor." Chase answered noncommittally. He didn't like Cameron, he had once but not anymore. He would admit to himself that part of it was his being jealous of the attention House paid to her and that House tended to respect her opinions more than his. But there were other reasons too.

"Which mean that you don't like her, why?"

"She is too nosy and judgemental." Chase could remember the exact moment he had started to really dislike her. They were in the CAT scan booth and she was questioning him about his father. He had already been in a horrible mood, hadn't been able to sleep in two days, had a pounding headache, and she wanted to psychoanalyze him. He had tried to be polite at first but she just kept pushing and pushing. He had lost his temper and snapped at her, at which point she had told him that he was wrong for feeling the way he did about his father. If Chase hadn't been a non violent sort, he would have boxed her in face.

When they were done in the booth he had handed her the results and said he would be back in a minute. He had fled to the nearest men's room and locked the door. His mind had been a whirlwind of voices telling him different things. He had wondered why his father had come to "say hello?" He had wanted to trust him, to believe that Rowan really did just want to see him. But he was so afraid that he would get hurt again like he always did. He thought that maybe he was a monster for not forgiving his father. But didn't he have a right to his feelings? Maybe his father had finally changed and wanted to be part of his life? But every time he started trusting again, Rowan would leave and he feel a little more of his heart flayed off. Was his father ever going to forgive him for letting his mother die? Was Rowan going to tell the others what happened to her? He prayed not, he didn't want them to know.

All of these thoughts swirled around inside his head until he wished that he could crack his skull against the wall just to let them out. Then there was the sense of betrayal that Cameron hadn't respected his wishes. She had sided with a man she had met only a few hours before rather than the one she had worked with for over half a year. Chase had liked and respected Cameron and her lack of faith in him had hurt, badly. She had filled him with more doubt and that was the last thing he needed. He already felt like his insides were knotted into macramé.

He had stood there, with his eyes closed and his face resting against the cool tile of the wall for at least 2 minutes. Then before he knew what was happening he was retching up the meager amount of food he had been able to choke down. You can only swallow so much rage, hate, bitterness, and hurt before it has to find some way to escape. He hadn't even realized he felt sick until he was finished. He had looked at his watch and realized he had been gone for almost five minutes and would soon be missed. He had quickly cleaned himself up and gone to face the rest of the staff and his father. He had felt like he was going to face a firing squad.

Ever since then, he hadn't been able to look at Cameron the same way. He couldn't understand why what she admired in House, she derided in him. What she accepted in others was unacceptable with him. Why couldn't she just understand that she was smart but didn't know everything and some things are private even from friends? He didn't want to deal with that from a co worker. He had enough doubts and felt bad enough about himself most of the time that he really did not need someone else adding to it.

"I don't know what things are like where you come from, man, but around here people ask things about you because they might be concerned." Foreman tried to point out. He had quickly noticed that the fastest way to annoy his Australian co-worker was to ask him something personal. Foreman had used it as a trick to get rid of Chase when he hadn't felt like dealing with him.

"If you say so." Chase wanted to change the subject. "So why were you so concerned about Dan's paternity when House mentioned it?" Chase was annoyed that Foreman had managed to keep him so off balance all night and thought it was only fair that he return the favour.

Foreman sighed but looked Chase straight in the eyes and answered. "The man who raised me wasn't my biological father. My sire was sent to jail when I was about 2 months old. I've never met him and have no desire to. Michael Foreman married my mother when I was about 2 years old and he is the only father I have ever known. He loves me like one of his own and has always been there when I needed him. And no one will ever convince me that he isn't my father. Biology is only the start but being a father is about more than genes. Dan's parents loved him and were his mother and father regardless of where his DNA came from." Foreman gave himself an internal high five. Chase had thought to wound him in their little war, but Foreman had long ago come to grips with this fact. But he couldn't let a volley go unanswered. "A father is man who is there on your birthday, who comes to your foot ball games and spelling bees, who calls just to make sure you are doing fine. A father loves his son more than himself and would do anything for his child. He is proud of his son for learning to drive and for graduating from med school. He is always there for late night talks over ice cream about girls, work, or politics. And all a father ever wants in return is to see his son happy. Tell me that genetics are required for that?"

"I suppose they are not." Chase answered. Foreman thought that the Aussie looked a little like he was about to throw up.

But Foreman hadn't forced this night on Chase to hurt him, which he was beginning to realizing was surprisingly easy. He wanted Chase to open up to him and so they could have some sort of congenial working relationship. So he decided to volunteer information. "My father was the reason I straightened up after my little taste of criminal life. I grew up in a rough neighbourhood in south central Los Angeles." Chase didn't look impressed. "I guess that doesn't mean anything to you, but it was a crime ridden, crack infested sort of place. Almost everyone I knew was in a gang and I was heading that way too. After I was arrested, my mother and my granny beat me within an inch of my life. And I deserved every slap. Then my dad sat down with me and told me how disappointed he was in me. That hurt worse than anything. He looked me in the eye and said, 'Eric, you have a gift and it is a waste for you not to do something special with it. God gave it to you but it is up to you to make something with it. I wish I had the money to send you to a good school but all I can do for you is let you know that no matter what, I believe in you and I will do anything I can to help you." And he did. Anytime the pressure to go with the gangs got bad or when I wanted to drop out of collage or I got stressed about anything, he would take me to this little fried chicken joint down the road and we would eat and talk. I always felt better about things after that. He put things in perspective." Foreman had hoped that spontaneous sharing would have helped Chase open up but if anything Chase now looked more distant and unhappy than before.

Chase had listened to Foreman talk about his life all evening. He had never had to worry about money so he had no concept of what it meant to be poor. So to him, Foreman described a fairy tale existence. And that was their main point of contention Chase realized. He had grown up privileged in everyway but under a tremendous amount of pressure, emotionally shut off, and insanely lonely. He had gone to the best schools, had accomplished amazing feats but had been nothing more than furniture in his own home. To his father, he was like a fine piece of china to be dragged out and admired when needed then locked away when he wasn't necessary. To his mother he had been a dark wardrobe. A place to dump all her secrets and pain but easily closed off so she didn't have to look at it. All he had wanted, his whole life, was to be loved, to be accepted and to feel safe and secure. He wanted to know that there was someplace he could always go and someone to help him if he needed it. Someplace that didn't change from hour to hour based on the whims of an addict. But he had never really had one. He had been the adult in the relationship with both his mother and father on more than one occasion. He had never really known what it was like to be taken care of because he had always been the caretaker.

Foreman, on the other hand, had always had a close knit family and strong support system. He had always had people around when he needed them and they took care of him as much as he took care of them. Foreman could run home and cry to his parents and they would hug him and tell him that hey loved him no matter what. They celebrated his accomplishments and held him up during his defeats. He had always known love. But he had always craved respect and wealth. Not because he was greedy but because he had grown up in fear of where the next house payment would come from or whether there would be enough food for dinner. He had always been looked down on by society because he was poor and black. He wanted people to know that he was better than what they thought of him and that they owed him respect. He and Chase were just so bloody different that they couldn't relate to one and other. They virtually had nothing in common.

"How do you feel about your father?" Foreman questioned.

"There are some things a co worker is not entitled to know, Foreman." Chase snarled. Foreman realized maybe he had pushed too hard.

"Sorry, tell me about the best and worse days of your life." Foreman asked. Very interested to see what Chase would say. He then proffered his companion the bottle again. It would be the fourth drink he had forced Chase to take. He could tell from the Aussie's eyes, which were not tracking straight, that Chase was getting pretty drunk. Half a beer and four shots, that was just sad.

Chase sipped the drink and tried not to choke this time then answered Foreman's question. The liquor was making his tongue loose and it made him worry. Apparently _in vino veritas_ was true after all. "The best day was the day I graduated from University. And the worst was the day my mother died." Both were lies but Foreman would never know. His best day had actually been when he and Cass and snuck away and gone skiing in Switzerland for a week and did nothing but bum around and be average joes. It had been wonderful.

The worst was harder. He had had so many bad days in his life. There was the day his brother and sister died. There was the day his father had moved out. There was the day he found out his mother had cancer. The day she had bled out and then the day three months later she finally died. But the worst had to be during the trial. Her best friend, Cass's mother, had sued to take over power of attorney from him because she hadn't wanted life support shut off. A long trial ensued and Chase was dragged into the national media as an angel of death. There were photographers following him everywhere and journalists asking him questions every time he turned around. For months they had been camped out in front of his house and never left him alone. One day, he was on the stand, and the other side asked him if he would be more sad or relieved when his mother died. He remembered that he hadn't been able to answer. He was a terrible person because he would in fact be relieved to have it over and done with.

He had freaked, lost it completely and the judge had called a recess for the rest of the afternoon. He didn't remember much else, just the strobing lights of the camera flashes as he had walked out. He didn't remember the ride home, nor how he had ended up curled up like child and sobbing his eyes out on the floor of the kitchen. He had been ready to give up then. To let everyone have whatever they wanted if they would just leave him alone. He had prayed until the words were a jumble in his mouth but God hadn't answered him. He hadn't prayed for a miracle but for strength and guidance. He just wanted to know he was doing the right thing. He had received none. That was when he realized that he was too afraid to even trust God. He had cried himself to sleep on the cold tiled floor, defeated, alone, and forsaken.

There was only so much a 16 year old could take and Chase had reached his limit. The cracks that had always run through him shattered that night and he had never completely pulled himself back together. He wasn't the most self aware person in the world but he did realize that he was basically held together by duct tape and will power. Whenever his will faded, parts of him would start to fall off and he would feel like he was bleeding. Pieces of himself, washed away in rivers of blood and carried away from him before he could scramble to pick them back up. His faith, his confidence, his happiness had all been sent downstream and he didn't know where to find them again.

He almost spoke these words, but Foreman interrupted him. "You were second in your class, right? Did you have to give a speech?"

Chase started to answer and then stopped. "How did you know I was second in my class?"

"I saw your CV." Foreman said. Hoping Chase would drop it.

"How?"

"I read your personnel file."

"What? How?"

"Look, don't get mad about it. It's my turn to ask a question. I saw in your file that you worked for the Red Cross. Why?"

"Because I wanted to get out of Australia. My turn, how did you see my file?"

Damn, Foreman cursed in side. He guessed he hadn't gotten Chase drunk enough to disable his quick little brain. "Wilson gave it to me. He saw us fighting and thought I would respect you more if I saw what you had accomplished." He didn't mention the other file he had seen, Rowan's file, or the rest of the talk with Wilson.

"Damn Wilson. I should have rooted his wife when I had the chance." Chase spat. Just after Cameron had come to PPTH, Julie Wilson had contrived to meet Chase at a bar and tried to seduce him in hopes of pissing off her husband. It had back fired because Chase wasn't about to break up a marriage between two people he knew. But now he regretted not doing it. Stupid meddling Wilson!

"It worked, Chase. I had no idea that you were so talented and smart." Foreman tried to pull the conversation back.

"You couldn't tell from working with me every day, but reading my file convinced you?" Chase snapped. Foreman wanted to tell him that yes it had changed everything because in person Chase came across as a lazy, stuck up, moron.

"That is not what I meant, man." He handed Chase the bottle again but this time the Aussie refused to take it. "I just meant that seeing all the things in there other than what I already knew made me see you in a different way. Not just the thorn in my side that I usually think you are. Tell me about your paintings. I saw that you had some on display in Australia."

Chase sighed. His head was spinning and he was angry, tired, and starting to get queasy. "They were nothing. Just some stuff I did for my mother so she could get her work displayed in the Sydney Art Museum. It was some stupid thing with two generations of artists. I'm not very good at it and never really liked art that much." Chase groused, slurring his words and hurt that Wilson would have done this to him.

"Still pretty cool though. Chase, I hope tonight helps. I want things to be cool between us. I want the tension to stop. Rivalries I don't mind, but animosity I can't deal with."

"Ok." Chase stood up. "Are we done? You can stay as long as you want but I need to go throw up and then go to bed, if you don't mind."

"Sure man. Um, hope you feel better." Foreman commented as Chase handed him a blanket and pillow from a chest by the wall. Chase nodded and staggered off towards the stairs and his bed. Foreman hid a smile at what an unbelievable lightweight the Aussie was. "So much for tough Australian men." He thought.

As he lied back, pleasantly warmed from the alcohol and the soft blanket he thought about his co worker. He didn't really understand Chase any better. He had gotten the idea that for every small piece of information Chase gave him, there were huge parts he left out. He figured he hadn't come even close to getting the whole picture. Chase was still being distrustful and secretive. He guessed his fellow duckling would also continue to be distant and vaguely unfriendly to himself and Cameron like he had always been. No doubt he would also be a suck up to House as if nothing had changed. But he had gotten some information and understanding of Chase's motivations in life. He had gotten Chase to relax a little bit and to talk to him without puffing up and hissing like snake. It wasn't a perfect solution but it was start.

End

**Epilogue**

A few weeks later.

House had been more rude and abusive than usual and seemed to be centering it on Chase. Both Foreman and Cameron had physically winced more than once during the morning as House had reamed his youngest duckling for not figuring out the case, which was strange because none of them had figured it out yet, not even House. Cam and Foreman had decided they would take Chase out to lunch. Things had calmed down quite a bit since Foreman and the Aussie had talked. He wouldn't say that they were friends or would ever really be good friends but they could hang out during work hours and not want to kill each other. Chase had also softened towards Cameron though only slightly. That would take time. He hadn't expected miracles in that department. One thing that had become glaringly obvious about Chase since their chat, was that he was pathologically afraid of trusting people and Cameron had betrayed that trust once. Foreman had just made him angry, Cameron had hurt him.

Just before they were going to head out to lunch, Wilson arrived and looked at House sadly. House gave an almost imperceptible nod then dismissed them for lunch. He stopped Chase before he could leave though and called the blonde into his office, closing the door behind Wilson. Cameron looked over at Foreman and wondered aloud. "I hope they aren't firing him." Foreman didn't think so. But it did make sense, why else would Wilson need to be there for what ever it was House wanted to talk to Chase about.

"Who knows? Let's go." Foreman ushered her out. About 1 minute later he realized he had left his wallet in his locker and told her he would be right back. He showed up just in time to see Chase bury his face in his hands and lean all the way over until the backs of his hands rested on his knees. Wilson had a comforting hand on Chase's back and House looked on sadly. "Oh shit." He breathed to no one in particular.

He was startled as Cameron came up behind him, tapping his shoulder. "What is it?" She asked, concerned that something had happened to Eric.

"I think Chase's father just died."

"What?" Cameron hadn't quite caught the quiet words.

"Nothing, come on."

OK. Tell me what you think, should I turn the Epilogue into a story?


End file.
